An Actor Remembers: Memorys Role in the Training of the United States Actor

by
Devin E. Malcolm
B.A. in The Human Drama, Juniata College, 1997
M.A. in Theatre, Villanova University, 2002









Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of
The Kenneth P. Dietrich School of
Arts and Sciences in partial fulfillment
of the requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy in Theatre History and Performance Studies









University of Pittsburgh
2012

UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH
Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences








This dissertation was presented

by


Devin E. Malcolm



It was defended on
November, 5
th
2012
and approved by
Kathleen George, PhD, Theatre Arts
Bruce McConachie, PhD, Theatre Arts
Edouard Machery, PhD, History and Philosophy of Science
Dissertation Advisor: Attilio Favorini, PhD, Theatre Arts


ii
Copyright by Devin E. Malcolm
2012
iii

This dissertation examines the different ways actor training techniques in the
United States have conceived of and utilized the actors memory as a means of inspiring
the actors performance. The training techniques examined are those devised and
taught by Lee Strasberg, Stella Adler, Joseph Chaikin, Stephen Wangh and Anne Bogart
and Tina Landau. As I shall illustrate, memory is not the unified phenomenon that we
often think and experience it to be. The most current research supports the hypothesis
that the human memory is composed of five distinctly different, yet interrelated
systems. Of these five my research focuses on three: episodic, semantic, and procedural.
As I believe no one theoretical approach could do justice to the variety of ways the
actors memory has been conceived of and used in U.S. training techniques I have
chosen to explore the issue from three different theoretical perspectives. Beginning
with a conception of memory that will, in all likelihood be the most familiar to my
readers, I explore the ways in which contemporary neuroscience can help us to
understand how Strasbergs Method uses the actors episodic memory to achieve a state
of affective remembering. I then use sociologist Maurice Halbwachss theory of
collective memory to reveal how the techniques of Adler and Chaikin utilize the actors
AN ACTOR REMEMBERS: MEMORYS ROLE IN THE TRAINING OF THE
UNITED STATES ACTOR

Devin E. Malcolm, PhD
University of Pittsburgh, 2012

iv
semantic memory system but to very different ends. Philosopher Edward Caseys
phenomenological study of procedural, or as it is more commonly known, body
memory serves as the foundation for my examination of how Wanghs acrobatic
technique uses the actors procedural memory to stimulate a state of affective
remembering in a manner which is remarkable similar to Strasbergs use of the actors
episodic memory. My study concludes with an examination of another highly physical
technique known as Viewpoints, developed by Bogart and Landau. In Viewpoints we
see a technique that utilizes not just procedural memory, but also the actors episodic
and semantic memory systems in a manner that is unique in United States actor training

v
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PREFACE ..................................................................................................................................... X
1.0 INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................................... 1
1.1 MULTIPLE MEMORIES UNDER CONSTRUCTION ............................... 5
2.0 A GARDENER OF THE HEART .......................................................................... 22
3.0 MEMORY IN MIND: EPISODIC MEMORY AND LEE STRASBERGS
METHOD ................................................................................................................................... 48
3.1 EPISODIC AND AUTOBIOGRAPHIC MEMORY .................................. 50
3.2 MEMORY COMES TO MANHATTAN ..................................................... 60
3.2.1 The Method ................................................................................................... 65
3.2.2 The Mnemonics Behind the Method ....................................................... 70
3.2.3 Some Conclusions ....................................................................................... 77
4.0 MEMORY IN SOCIETY: COLLECTIVE MEMORY, STELLA ADLER AND
JOSEPH CHAIKIN ................................................................................................................... 81
4.1 STELLA ADLER AND CHARACTER BY TYPE ....................................... 92
4.2 JOSEPH CHAIKIN: SUBVERTING THE SETUP ................................... 118
5.0 MEMORY IN THE BODY: PROCEDURAL MEMORY, STEPHAN WANGH
AND VIEWPOINTS ............................................................................................................... 144
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5.1.1 Marginality ................................................................................................. 156
5.1.2 Density and Depth .................................................................................... 159
5.1.3 Co-immanence of the past and present ................................................. 162
5.2 STEPHEN WANGH ...................................................................................... 164
5.3 VIEWPOINTS ................................................................................................ 187
6.0 CONCLUSION ....................................................................................................... 205
BIBLIOGRAPHY..................................................................................................................... 214
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LIST OF TABLES

Table 1. Viewpoints of Time and Space ................................................................................ 190
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LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1. Examples of Wanghs Exercises Corporels (Acrobat, 64-69) ................................. 175

ix
PREFACE

This work is dedicated to all those who helped to make it possible. To all my teachers,
notably Michael B Bodolosky, Dr. Robert Wagoner, Dr. Joanna Rott and Dr. Attilio
Buck Favorini. To the social frameworks of my families the one I was born into and
those I have acquired along the way; my wife Julie, my boys Quinn and Liam as well as
those friends turned family who are spread out across the Philly, Baltimore and D.C.
areas. Above all, however, this work is for my late grandmother Phyllis Eldora Edenbo
whose unconditional love and support made me believe this was possible. I will always
remember you.
x
1.0 INTRODUCTION
Is it not monstrous that this player here,
But in a fiction, in a dream of passion,
Could force his soul so to his own conceit
-William Shakespeare, Hamlet Act II, Scene ii

Memory is versatile. Think of the variety of ways in which we use the word
memory. In its most common usage, memory refers to those past experiences that
stay with us. Memory can also refer to our capacity to recall past experiences, such as
when we say so and so has a good memory. Memory is how we are able to learn
from our past mistakes. Memory can be seen in a hundred little things that we do each
day without a second thought recalling a phone number, typing these words, tying
my shoes or driving to work. Memory provides us with a sense of continuity in our
lives - that today we are the same person as we were yesterday. It also connects us with
other people, giving us a common ground upon which we can relate and connect with
one another. Memory is, then, a mental, physical, and social phenomenon.
Memory is also a performative act. When we remember something, most often
we do so in order to carry out some kind of behavior in the present or future. I commit
a phone number to memory for future use. I cover my desk with notes that serve as
1
reminders to do certain tasks in the near future. Even when we simply sit around
reminiscing about days gone by, memory is a performance. Memory recreates and
reconstructs for us events and actions that have long since been over and done with.
The actors may have left the stage long ago, but their ghosts remain, forever reenacting
their scene on the stage of our memory. Memory is a difficult thing to pin down
because it slips easily across categories. One of the reasons why memory resists hard
and fast definitions is that there is more than one type of memory. Some people have a
good memory for faces, others excel at remembering numbers, and some can recall
trivia with incredibly accuracy. All of these instances are examples of memory, but
what is not commonly understood is that in each of the examples mentioned above, the
object of the memory - a face, a number, trivia - represents a different kind of
knowledge and as such a different type of memory. And whats more, our memories
arent fixed and unchangeable. Memory is alive, and how we experience it depends
upon the ever-changing circumstances of our lives eroding the distinctions in how we
designate past, present, and future.
Our word memory comes from the ancient Greek Mnemosyne. In Greek
mythology, Mnemosyne was a Titan: one of the incredible beings of terrible power who
could be considered the elder siblings of the ancient Greek gods. Also referred to as
she who knows all tales, Mnemosyne gave birth to the Muses: the nine goddesses
responsible for inspiring artists in a variety of fields. Mnemosyne, or Memory, then,
turns out to be the mother of all the arts. The actors art, in particular, could very easily
2
and quite correctly be called an art of memory. Actors must be able to remember words
and actions set down, more often than not, by another person. As an actor I have
participated in a number of audience talk-back sessions. Often someone asks, How do
you remember all those lines? Actors need to remember not only their lines but also
their blocking, stage business, entrance and exit cues and so forth. Actors also use their
memories to breathe life into the characters that they play. In short, acting is a process
of remembering.
The connection between the actors art and the actors memory has only
intensified throughout the twentieth century with the development of specialized
acting techniques. This relationship between the actors art and the actors memory is
my subject matter. In the following chapters I will examine the variety of ways in
which the actors memory has been explored and cultivated by various actor training
techniques developed in the United States during the twentieth century. The
techniques under investigation include those developed by Lee Strasberg, Stella Adler,
Joseph Chaikin, Stephan Wangh, Anne Bogart, and Tina Landau. I have chosen these
specific practitioners because each of their training techniques, to varying degrees and
in different ways targets the actors own memory as a means of jump-starting
inspiration.
But to ask how different actor training techniques utilize the actors memory is to
ask only half of the question. The other half deals with what types of memory or
memories these techniques call upon. Over the course of the last two centuries, the
3
subject of memory has been the province of disciplines as wide-ranging as psychology,
neuroscience, sociology, and philosophy. Each discipline has proposed its own concept
of what memory is and how it functions in our lives. My own examination of memory
will illustrate how different acting techniques developed in the United States over the
course of the twentieth century reflect different concepts of memory. As I will show,
we are endowed with several different types of memory that often, unbeknownst to us,
work in conjunction with one another. Most contemporary actors draw from various
forms of actor training rather than employing a single style. In much the same way,
remembering is usually accomplished thanks to several different types of memory
working simultaneously. And while an inter-disciplinary approach to the study of
memory and the actors training presents many challenges, adopting such a wide-
ranging perspective allows me to present what I believe to be a well-rounded picture of
memory at work in the actors training.
I approach memory from psychological, sociological and philosophical
(phenomenological) conceptions. To provide us with some common ground to talk
about these different concepts of memory, I turn to the work of contemporary
neuroscientists like Endel Tulving, whose work on multiple memory systems has
proven to be helpful in explaining how different types of memory are intricately woven
together to form what we often mistake as a single, monolithic entity we call memory.
4
1.1 MULTIPLE MEMORIES UNDER CONSTRUCTION
Before I delve into the specifics of how different acting techniques develop the actors
memory, let me plainly state at the outset two important characteristics of memory.
First, what we call memory should actually be referred to as memories. Whats
more, the conception that memory is a complete, intact recording of past experiences a
mental photocopy if you will - stored away for later use is misleading. The process of
remembering is a process of reconstruction wherein fragments of past experiences are
categorized and influenced by our present circumstances. In other words, what you
remember is in all likelihood, not exactly how the original event transpired. Anyone
who has revisited his old childhood stomping grounds is familiar with the
reconstructed nature of memory: the playground is not as big as you remember it and
the swings dont go nearly as high or as fast as they once did.
The idea of multiple forms of memory is not new, although corroborating
evidence supporting this theory is. Contemporary technology such as Positron Emission
Topography (PET) scans and functioning magnetic resonance imaging scans (fMRI)
allows us to see memory in action. Evidence provided by these technologies confirms
the existence of several different memory systems. This fact has led some of the finest
minds in memory research to reassess their basic approach to memory studies. In an
article entitled Concepts of Memory (2000) Endel Tulving, co-editor of The Oxford
Handbook of Memory, makes the case that conceptual analysis of memory is just as
important as the traditional experimental analysis that makes up the majority of
5
memory research. Tulving argues that conceptual analysis is important because it helps
us to formulate the right kinds of questions to ask about memory. While there is much
interplay and some overlap between our various types of memory, not every question
that can be posed for one idiom makes sense in the other, and not every fact that is true
of one idiom is true of the other (Tulving 38). The first set of questions about memory
and actor training that interest me is what Tulving would refer to as what questions
(33). What questions are the kinds of questions that deal with our cognitive
understanding of memory, i.e. what kind of memory is being used.
The idea that we possess more than one type of memory can be traced as far back
as Aristotle. In his On Memory and Reminiscence Aristotle writes about how
Sometimes in remembering a fact one has no determinate time-notion of it, no
such notion as that e.g. he did something or other on the day before yesterday;
while in other cases he has a determinate notion of the time. Still, even though
one does not remember with actual determination of the time, he genuinely
remembers, none the less. (10)
In this passage Aristotle is talking about the differences between two types of
memory now identified as semantic and episodic memory. As we shall see, these two
types of memory differ in major ways but often work in conjunction with one another to
produce what we take for granted as a single memory.
6
In 1804 the French philosopher Maine de Biran postulated three distinct forms of
memory: representative, mechanical, and sensitive (Schacter, Wagner & Buckner 2000).
One hundred and four years later another French philosopher, Henri Bergson, asserted
that the past appears indeed to be stored up, as we had surmised, under two extreme
forms, these being motor mechanism and personal-memory images (Matter and
Memory 102). The former, Bergson relegates to the realm of mere habit, while he viewed
the latter as true memory. As Suzanne Nalbantian states:
Intuitively, Bergson was preparing the way for a global approach to the
study of memory as a process involving various regions of the brain. He would
rather envisage true memory as being stored in the intangible mind (lesprit) than
in the tangible brain (le cerveau), which could not be a container for the
conservation of memory (11).
Bergsons work could be described, as Nalbantian suggests, as a metaphysical
approach to memory; metaphysical because he sought to locate true memory in the
mind/spirit and not in the physical structure of the brain.
If we think of Bergson as being interested in the more apollonian aspects of memory
then the work of his contemporary Pierre Janet, could be seen as pursuing the chthonic
side of memory in the elocutions of hysterics in their dreams and fantasies
(Nalbantian 14). Janet distinguished between two types of memory: elementary or
sensitive memory; and complex, or intellectual memory. Sensitive memory consists of
recollection of specific sensations experienced by the individual. In contrast complex
7
memory deals with ideas and occurs only as a function of language. Janet sees memory
as synthesis of the sensitive and intellectual forms of memory. In his study of hysterics
Janet concludes their condition is due to an imbalance of memory, too much sensitive
memory and not enough intellectual memory. In his 1928 LEvolution de la memoire Janet
would posit language as the fundamental agent of memory (17). As Nalbantian
points out this transforms memory into a social act a concept of memory that is taken
up in later years by memographers
1
like Maurice Halbwachs. Like Bergson, Janets
works runs counter to the purely physiological views of memory that dominated his
time. At the same time, however, Janet is also criticizing Bergsons metaphysical view
of memory as being tied to the mind (esprit) and not the brain (cerveau) Instead of
positing the mind/matter dualism championed by Bergson, Janet sets up a dualism of
consciousness, in which two types of memory could coexist (Nalbantian 18).
William James, a contemporary to both Bergson and Janet, also posited the existence
of a more than one type of memory. In his Principles of Psychology James hypothesizes
the existence of a primary memory and a secondary memory (Chapter 16). According
to James, primary memory is composed of permanent substratum of neural pathways
which are the conditions of retention. Such habit-worn paths are physical brain traces
(Nalbantian 20). Secondary memory depends upon a reactivation of these brain traces
and occurs only when the remembered object has been absent from consciousness
altogether (James 646). Memory then, according to James, is a psychophysical process.
1
A term coined by Attilio Favorini, which he applies to memory scholars regardless of their specific
discipline.
8

Our current understanding of how memory functions is not dissimilar from James
psychophysical view of memory. We know that the brain is physically altered by the
formation of memory. We also know, and this is where our current understanding of
memory differs from James, that memory involves so much more than a reactivation of
certain brain traces.
Each of these men stands out as a pioneer in the field of memory studies. And
while time and technology have proven that many aspects of their theories about
memory were incorrect, their shared assertion that we have more than one type of
memory still remains valid. Although each located memory in different realms -
Bergson in the spirit, Janet in the interplay between subconscious and conscious and
James in the interplay of body and mind all three recognized that what we call
memory is not a unitary system, but rather a composite of multiple systems. Today
neuroscientists have suggested five distinctly different, yet interrelated systems of
memory. Endel Tulving first defined a memory system as having, a set of correlated
processes (Schacter et al. 2000). This definition was later expounded upon by the work
of Sherry and Schacter (1987) who adopted a very general definition of a memory
system as, an interaction among acquisition, retention, and retrieval mechanisms that
is characterized by certain rules of operation (Schacter et al. 2000). The emergence of
more than one memory system is often viewed as an evolutionary strategy for survival.
The basic idea is that multiple systems of memory evolved, when problems of
information storage and retrieval required systems with functionally incompatible
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properties (Schacter et al. 2000). Joining forces, Schacter and Tulving proposed three
criteria for identifying memory systems: class inclusion operations, properties and
relations and finally convergent dissociation. In laymens terms: what kind of
information does the memory system handle (class inclusion), how does a memory
system function internally and in relation to other systems (properties and relations)
and finally do the different systems present different kinds of evidence of their
existence (convergent dissociation).
Using these three criteria as defining parameters, Schacter and Tulving identified
five distinct memory systems at work. These include working memory, episodic
memory, semantic memory, the procedural representation system (PRS) and procedural
memory. The fact that we can differentiate between these five distinct systems of
memory doesnt mean that they work in isolation. Even though each of these systems is
responsible for its own type of memories they can, and often do, work in conjunction
with one another. The first of these, working memory, is that kind of memory that we
employ for temporary storage, like how you repeat a phone number over and over to
ensure that you will remember it as you make your way to the phone. Working
memory may be converted to long term memory, or it may simply be forgotten once we
have no longer have any use for it. The second of these systems is the episodic system.
This is the one that most people refer to when they talk about memory. Episodic
memory is the memory of specific, personal experiences. Episodic memories almost
always contain some kind of personal meaning and are the memories that help us to
10
construct a sense of self. When I remember the births of my two sons almost missing
the birth of my first because my father and I were across the street having a burger, and
reading to my wife from Goethes Faust in the moments before my second sons birth
these are episodic memories.
The third type of memory system is one that deals with semantic memory.
Semantic memory is another kind of memory that we call on repeatedly throughout our
daily lives. It is the kind of factual information that you know but have no specific
memory of ever having learned. I know that the capital of France is Paris but I do not
have a memory of the context wherein I first learned this information. Semantic
memory is eminently practical because it allows us to retain and access the most basic
kinds of information without cluttering that information up with the myriad of details
that often comes along with episodic memory.
The fourth system identified by Schacter and Tulving is called the procedural
representational system or PRS for short. This memory system deals with perceptional
information about words and objects. The PRS is believed to play a major role in the
phenomenon known as priming. Priming refers to the fact that multiple exposures to a
word or object increase the chances of quickly recalling it in the future. It is, in essence,
exactly like priming an engine with oil before you start it. The engine may turn over the
first time you start it, but priming it with some oil makes it likely that the engine will
come to life more quickly than if it hadnt been primed.
11
The fifth, and at least for now, final system is called procedural memory. This
system deals with the learning and recalling of cognitive and motor skills. Reading and
riding a bike are a good example of procedural memory. As I move my eyes across the
page from left to right I constantly draw upon my memory to recognize the literal
meaning of words as well as contextual and syntactical clues to meaning. When I climb
on a bike for an afternoon ride I push off and am away. The complex series of physical
actions like maintaining balance, maintaining enough velocity and guiding the bike
seems to take place all at once. I dont need to prime my memory for how to do these
things, the remembering happens in the doing with or without our being conscious of
it. If youve ever struggled to learn a new language or master a new motor skill you can
appreciate how much we take procedural memory for granted. If it were not for the
procedural memory system, wed have great difficulty in acquiring new skills as well as
using those skills we already possess.
The existence of multiple types of memory suggests that what we experience as a
single memory is, in reality, a construction made up of several different types of
memory. The constructed nature of memory was first suggested by F. C. Bartlett in his
groundbreaking work Remembering: A Study in Experimental and Social Psychology (1932).
His experiments in remembering and forgetting suggested to him that the process of
remembering, if we consider evidence rather than presupposition [it] appears to be
far more decisively an affair of construction rather than one of mere reproduction
(Bartlett 205). And while today Bartletts conclusions are accepted as fact, prior to his
12
work and for some time after it, most memographers throughout history thought of
memory as a reproductive phenomenon. Each memory was thought to form some
trace, or some group of traces that is made and stored up in the organism or in the
mind (Bartlett 199). It was believed that each trace, or group of traces, was the
physical location of a single memory. In the early twentieth century German zoologist
and evolutionary biologist Richard Semon coined the term engram to refer to these
traces.
Semon defined an engram as, the enduring though primarily latent
modification in the irritable substance produced by a stimulus (12). The formation of
memory occurs when an experience leaves its mark, metaphorically and literally, upon
the human brain. The process of remembering involved the activation of the engram
formed by the initial experience and, if successful, would result in the complete recall of
all the details of a given memory a mental photocopy if you will. The engram
hypothesis reflects the idea that our memory is composed of thousands upon thousands
of individual memories all stored away in complete detail. And while today we know
this view to be erroneous, it was in fact, in keeping with a view of memory that has
been the dominant one throughout history. A brief look at the mnemonic device known
as the loci method will illustrate how pervasive this view of memory has been.
The loci method comes down to us from ancient Greece and remains in use to
this day. In the loci method the individuals memory is pictured as a house with an
infinite number of rooms. If you want to remember a particular event, thing or person
13
you construct a mental picture of a specific room and then envision the object you want
to remember in that room. The theory goes that when you need to retrieve a particular
item from memory all you have to do is visualize the target memorys room and its
contents would be remembered. In my own experience I have found the loci method to
be a rather effective method for remembering things. In addition the persistence, in one
guise or another, of the loci method throughout history also attests to its effectiveness.
In 1950 American psychologist and behaviorist Karl Lashley presented a paper at
a symposium for the Society of Experimental Biology entitled In search of the
engram. Lashleys experiments were an attempt to locate, within the brain of rats, the
engram of a conditioned reflex. In his experiments Lashley would condition reflexes in
his rats and then lesion portions of the rats brains in an attempt to locate the engram of
the conditioned reflex. Lashleys thinking was that if he happened to damage the area
of the rats brain that held the engram, the rat would not be able to remember how to
perform its task. Not surprisingly, Lashley discovered that the more damaged the rats
brain was the less effective the rat was in performing its assigned task. What Lashley
did not discover, however, was a correlation between damage to a specific area and the
loss of a specific conditioned reflex. Lashley concluded that the engram, as envisioned
by Semon and others, did not exist. Lashleys results lead him to speculate that
memory is not localized in any one area of the brain but instead is distributed across the
entire neural cortex. Contemporary research has proven Lashleys assumptions to be,
in part, correct. Today we know that individual memories are not located in individual
14
areas of the brain but are in fact distributed across several different areas of the brain;
but not the entire cortex as Lashley assumed. Lashleys findings put an end, once and
for all, of the one engram/one memory model of memory. With the refutation of the
engram hypothesis, researchers gave Bartletts theory of constructed memory a closer
look. Today there is no question that remembering involves a process of reconstruction
encompassing multiple cortical regions and is affected by a variety of factors all
contributing to how we make and recall memories.
Although Bartletts theory of reconstruction and Schacter and Tulvings
classification of memory systems tell us much about what is happening on a
neurological level, they are not very helpful in describing how we experience memory.
This is a shortcoming that is all too common among the scientifically-oriented
memographers. We have learned a great deal from laboratory studies of memory but
that vast wealth of knowledge has often neglected, if not completely discounted, the
experiential component of memory. As Favorini notes, Bartletts emphasis on the
constructive and social dimensions of remembering did, for a very short period spur
interest in what some memographers refer to as ordinary memory (Favorini 137), or
memory as we encounter it in our everyday lives. Eventually this interest in ordinary
memory gave way to the study of memory under strictly-controlled, artificial
circumstances. Although laboratory research has given us a clearer picture of how
memory works, it is an incomplete picture. What laboratory studies of memory often
lose sight of is that in our daily experience of it, memory doesnt occur under controlled
15
conditions. The movement to reunite the study of the memory with the larger social
context we, as humans, operate in was spearheaded, in part, by renowned
memographer and psychologist Ulric Neisser. In his 1982 work entitled Memory
Observed: Remembering in Natural Contexts Neisser points out that, If X is an interesting
or socially significant aspect of memory, the psychologists have hardly studied X
(Neisser 1982, 4). Neissers work, and the work of others like him, takes what has
become known as an ecological approach to the study of memory - that is to say, the
study of memory in its natural environment as it occurs in our everyday experience of
it, outside of the sterile confines of the laboratory. The ecological movement among
memographers didnt gain much momentum until the 1980s, but since then more and
more researches across a variety of fields have begun to pay more attention to memory
as it happens in the world and our lives.
I intend to rely on the ecological approach in my own study of memory and the
actors training. Each acting technique will be contextualized not only in regard to its
place in the mnemonic discourse, but also within the larger context of theatre history.
One question such an approach will help to answer is what does the use of the actors
memory in these various techniques reveal about the practitioner's understanding of memory?
Do these techniques demonstrate an understanding of memory that is in keeping with
or ahead of its time or, conversely, is the practitioner completely off base with regards
to their understanding of memory? Such an approach also allows us to examine how
these historical views of memory stack up against our current understanding of memory. Using
16
Schacter and Tulvings classification of memory systems will allow me to identify what
type/s of memory is/are being engaged by the training system. Once identified, I will
correlate our current understanding of how a type of memory functions with how the
training technique engages said type of memory.
This approach takes us a little closer to understanding the connections between
the actors training and memory as it occurs in the world. To fully bridge the gap I turn
to the work of philosopher Edward Casey and what he calls the Act and Object phases
of memory. In his phenomenological study of memory simply entitled Remembering
(2000), Casey focuses on memory as it is experienced. Caseys work on memory is a far
cry from the rigidly analytic, scientific analysis that currently occupies center stage in
memory studies. Harkening back to the time when memory was the province of
philosophers and poets, Caseys work nevertheless displays significant
correspondences with the hard sciences approach taken by others such as Schacter
and Tulving. Casey distinguishes between what he calls Primary and Secondary
remembering. The first, primary, is what Casey (49) calls the ability to remain aware of,
of holding in mind an experience that has just transpired what Schacter and Tulving
call working memory. Secondary remembering, as defined by Casey, is a much broader
category of remembering that encompasses the kinds of memory governed by the
episodic, semantic, PRS and procedural memory systems identified by Schacter and
Tulving. Casey defines as secondary remembering the kinds of experiences or facts that
have lapsed from my conscious after their initial occurrence (50). Thus the
17
secondary of Caseys secondary remembering refers to memories that have long since
ceased to be governed by the system of working memory and instead have transferred
themselves into one of the other four memory systems. In his analysis of memory
Casey points out that the phenomenon of memory is a diphasic experience that can
be, intellectually, divided up into an act phase and an object phase roughly, into how
we remember and what we remember (48). To talk about the act phase of
remembering is to concern ourselves with the actual process of remembering, with
how remembering is accomplished or realized on specific occasions (Remembering 48).
In terms of acting this refers to the way a specific technique teaches an actor to use their
memory. The object phase, as the name suggests, refers to the object or content of
memory. Identification of the object phase not only tells us what the content of memory
is but also gives us a very good starting point at locating that memory within the
context of the five systems of memory. As Casey points out our experience of the act
and object phases of remembering are simultaneous and not successive but an
intentional analysis of remembering needs must be able to distinguish between the two
(48). The major reason for this distinction is because, as we have seen, the process of
remembering is a process of reconstruction. This is exactly why Caseys act/object
phases of memory can be useful it translates into terms of experiencing memory the
same questions asked by Tulving in his conceptual analysis of memory it bridges the
gap between concept and experience, between theory and practice.
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In the first chapter I will provide a brief account of how Constantine
Stanislavskys work contributed to the intertwining of memory and actor training. For
theatre historians I will be treading over what is most likely, familiar ground. And yet
in a study of the actors training and the actors memory, Stanislavskis technique must
be our point of departure. Not only is Stanislavskis technique the origin of
contemporary actor training, it was also the first to rely on a scientifically-oriented view
of memory. This should come as no surprise when one considers that Stanislavskis
earliest attempts to develop a system of actor training coincide, historically speaking,
with the emergence of memory as a subject of scientific interest and study.
In the second chapter I will examine the system of actor training developed by
Lee Strasberg. If Stanislavski was the first to utilize the actors memory in a systematic
way, Strasbergs interpretation of Stanislavski is the means by which memory entered
into the modern training of United States actors. Strasbergs emphasis on emotional
memory illustrates a conception and use of memory that is very similar to the work of
behavioral psychologists like Ivan Pavlov. These techniques exhibit an understanding
and use of memory in keeping with the psychological and neuroscientific conceptions
of memory; conceptions which firmly root memory within the confines of the body-
mindedness to borrow Antonio Damasios term).
Chapter three focuses on techniques developed by Stella Adler and Joseph
Chaikin whose techniques concentrate on the actors collective memory; a conception of
memory proposed by sociologist Maurice Halbwachs. Adlers characterization
19
technique and its reliance on type provides us with the opportunity to see how
collective memory influences the actors portrayal of character. In a similar manner the
more experimental actor training advanced by Joseph Chaikin also relies on the actors
collective memory but with one major distinction. While Adlers use of type reinforces
and tends to perpetuate the status quo of the collective memory, Chaikins technique
seeks to ferret out and interrogate the inborn prejudices that can be handed down in the
collective memory.
Finally, chapter four will take as its subject matter the philosophical concept of
body memory as put forth by Edward Casey. The highly physical acting techniques
taught by Stephen Waugh and Anne Bogart and Tina Landau all attempt to come at the
actors memory via the body. Waughs version of Grotowski rests on the idea that
memories can linger in the body and accessing such memories can trigger a state of
affective remembering. Bogart and Landaus technique uses the nine Viewpoints and
the actors body memory as a means of approaching acting from a non-psychological
perspective. In both instances actors are asked to work with the memories that dwell
not in their minds, but are embodied in the actors flesh and bones.
Each of the following chapters follows the same structure, beginning with a
general overview of the type of memory that is being investigated followed by an
analysis of the actor training technique. Stylistically it should be noted that I have
discarded the use of his or her convention, which I find unwieldy to write and read,
and have simply adopted the gender pronoun of the actor training theorist whom I am
20
examining. My readers will also note that for many of my examples I rely on my own
memories and experiences as an actor who has trained in and used several of the
techniques examined in the following chapters. In doing so I must acknowledge my
debt to Edward Casey whose own study of memory takes the same approach. Casey
adopts such an approach because his is a phenomenological study of memory and
therefore necessitates a personal perspective. In my own way, I, too, am conducting a
phenomenological study of memory, albeit on a much more general level. I invite my
readers to substitute their own memories in place of my examples. I invite them take
the time to engage with their own memories, if just for a moment, in order to experience
how memory can make one feel. I hope that the personal experience of some of these
memories conveys to the reader how truly powerful memory can be for the actor and
why the use of the actors memory can be a risky venture and not to be undertaken
lightly. It is also my hope that this work provides my readers with not only a greater
understanding of how the actors memory has been targeted for use by various actor
training systems, but also an opportunity to reevaluate their basic assumptions about
memory. Memory is not just in our minds; it shapes the world in which we live and
resides within our bodies.
21
2.0 A GARDENER OF THE HEART
Any system has to become so familiar that you forget about it. Only after it has
become part of your flesh and blood and heart can you begin, unconsciously, to derive
real benefit from it.
-Constantine Stanislavski, original draft preface to An Actors Work

Theatre history is full of examples of how actors have put their own memories to use in
their work. In his Attic Nights, the second century BCE grammarian and lawyer Aulus
Gellus recounts the story of a popular and well-respected actor named Polus who used
his sons death as a means of inspiration. Gellus tells us that, [. . .] Polus, clad in the
mourning garb of Electra, took from the tomb the ashes and urn of his son, embraced
them as if they were those of Orestes, and filled the whole place, not with the
appearance and imitation of sorrow, but with genuine grief and unfeigned lamentation
(Actors on Acting 15). Nearly two thousand years later, the subject of acting and
memory was taken up by Denis Diderot in his The Paradox of the Actor (1830). In his
chapter on Diderot, Joseph Roach concludes that the Paradox, restates Diderots general
contention maintained in the Reve de dAlembert and the Elements, that the individual is a
succession of experience bound together, given coherence, by the thread of memory
(The Players Passion 145). Even those who disagreed with Diderots general theory of
dispassionate passion in acting, like actor and theorist Francois-Joseph Talma, also
22
thought of the actors memory as being the theoretical bridge between sincerity and
art, between inner feelings and outer forms (Roach PP, 173). Although the subject of
memory and its relationship to the actors art has occupied many of the great minds in
theatre history, it was the lifelong pursuit of one man whose work on actor training
forever linked the actors art with the actors memory.
Born into a prosperous, theatre loving family, Constantine Stanislavski began his
work in the theatre at a young age. As a young man Stanislavsky achieved some
middling renown as an amateur actor. It was during these early years in the theatre
that Stanislavsky first began to grow dissatisfied with the acting conventions of his day
- conventions he himself did his utmost to emulate. His experience in Pushkin's The
Miser Knight marks a major, if somewhat obscure, moment in the history of actor
training. Prior to this role, Stanislavsky's usual technique was to copy the performance
of a famous actor who had also played the same role. This approach to acting was not
uncommon at all during this period, and in fact, was the standard method of actor
training for many actors. Unfortunately for Stanislavsky, and fortunately for actors
coming after him, he had never seen anyone perform the role of the Miser Knight.
Having no template on which to model his performance, and because the character of
the Miser Knight was so different from him in age, attitude and general demeanor,
Stanislavsky felt at a loss for what to do. How would he be able to perform a role for
which he had no model? How could he play a character that was much older and
23
physically decrepit? This early crisis of artistic conscience would lead Stanislavsky to
revolutionize the world of theatre.
Early in his investigations Stanislavski became captivated by some of L.N.
Tolstoy's thoughts about art. "Art begins," writes Tolstoy, "when a person, whose goal
is to convey to other people a feeling which he had experienced, calls it up in himself
and expresses it thorough recognizable external signs."(What is Art? 178). Implied
within this statement is that art necessarily involves the re-experience of a past feeling
on the part of the artist and communicating that feeling or feelings to an audience. This
idea of the artist drawing on his past to inspire him in the present fascinated
Stanislavski. From his own experiences in theatre, both as an actor and audience
member, Stanislavski was quite familiar with those wonderful moments when
inspiration takes hold and the performance flows as if of its own accord. Stanislavski
noted that during those times when an actor was inspired, he seemed to truly live up to
Tolstoy's edict about the creation of art.
Stanislavski's own experiences on stage and from observation of other actors led
him to the conclusion that, Acting is above all intuitive, because it is based on
subconscious feelings, on an actor's instincts (Stanislavski, An Actors Work xxiv). In
my own work as an actor I have on occasion had a performance or two that I would call
inspired. The strange thing about these few occasions is that I am hard pressed to recall
exactly what I did. I have no recollection of actually performing, per se, but rather a
general sense of simply being and doing, of acting on instinct. And in spite of my best
efforts, I was never able to truly capture the experience again for the rest of the shows
24
run. In all honesty I would be hard pressed to even begin to explain how or what had
inspired me. This is exactly the problem Stanislavski saw when it came to relying on
inspiration as a motivating factor for performance. Stanislavski believed that if a way
could be found to induce, as it were, inspiration, then an actor would have recourse to a
reliable method of calling up past experiences without having to rely on the fickle
nature of inspiration. For what Stanislavski had come to believe was that inspiration is
the actor's instinct guiding her through the role. The question for Stanislavski became
how to access those instincts without inspiration. Stanislavski believed the answer lay
in discovering a way to artificially stimulate the actor's inspiration. For Stanislavski this
meant finding a way to access the actor's subconscious through controlled, conscious
means. This simple formulation serves as the foundation for nearly all systems of actor
training that have followed.
In An Actor's Work Stanislavski likens the process of an actor seeking out
inspiration to that of a hunter attempting to bag wild fowl. "If the bird will not fly to
you by herself, then nothing will bring her from the leafy thicket. There is nothing else
to do but entice the wildfowl out of the forest with the help of special whistles called
'lures' (An Actors Work, 14). No one lure woks for every bird so a hunter must be
knowledgeable about and proficient in using a variety of lures. Stanislavski
experimented with all manner of different lures for his actors with mixed results. Some
of these lures include: the sound effects the early Moscow Art Theatre was famous for,
the Magic If, the Given Circumstances as well as the Method of physical actions. But of
all the various lures Stanislavski experimented with over the course of his lifetime, none
25
has had such a profound effect on actor training in the United States as affective
memory. Even though affective memory, or as Stanislavski called it, emotion memory,
is but one among the many various techniques Stanislavski experimented with over the
course of his studies, in the United States affective memory was for many years
perceived as the end-all and be-all of Stanislavskis system. Publication, translation and
second-hand interpretation issues all contributed to this misunderstanding of the
importance of affective memory to Stanislavskis system. And as we shall see, these
issues helped to shape the ways in which Stanislavskis technique has been
appropriated and adapted for use in the United States. But first let us examine in detail
the concept of affective memory and how it influenced Stanislavskis work.
According to the French experimental psychologist Thodule Ribot, affective
memory is a type of memory which causes the rememberer to re-experience, in the
present, the emotions he had experienced during the period he is remembering. It is
not just remembering being sad on the day your grandmother passed away but rather
actually physically and mentally experiencing that sadness again. Ribot first advanced
his idea of affective memory in the 1898 publication of The Psychology of the Emotions. In
a chapter entitled The Memory of Feelings Ribot plainly states that, The question of
the emotional memory remains nearly, if not quite, untouched. The object of this
chapter is to begin its study (The Psychology of the Emotions 141). In order for a memory
to be classified as emotional Ribot maintained that it must be "felt" in the body in a
manner reminiscent of the initial experience, "an emotion which does not vibrate
through the whole body is nothing but a purely intellectual state (Psychology of
26
Emotions 163). Ribots contention that anything less than a physical experience reflects
his belief that all emotions remembered and presently experienced are physiological
in origin. In fact every aspect of human psychology, even memory, could be seen as a
biological in origin. As Susan Nalbantian points out in her overview of nineteenth
century psychology, Ribot had in his Les Maladies de la memoire (1881), categorically
stated that memory is essentially an organic biological event (Nalbantian 6). Through
his studies Ribot concludes that, The observations, carefully taken, show that there are
two distinct forms of emotional memory, one abstract, the other concrete (148). Ribot
classified as abstract those types of emotional memories wherein only the conditions,
circumstances, and accessories of the emotion can be recalled; there is only an
intellectual memory (emphasis in original 152). The majority of Ribots test subjects fell
under this category. A minority, however, displayed concrete, physical reactions to
emotional memory. Others (far less numerous) recall the circumstances plus the
revived condition of feeling. It is these who have the true affective memory[. . .]
(Psychology of Emotions 153). Ribot refers to these people as "affective types" and
concludes that it is a rare and fragile phenomenon. Even in the cases where true
affective memory was taking place Ribot notes that the process is slow and often
required some form of stimulus to fully develop into a true affective memory. Ribot,
however, speculates that there are some types of people who are more naturally
inclined to experiences of affective memory. It is natural to suppose, Ribot writes,
that emotional revival must be of frequent occurrence in poets and artists (154).
Regardless of the rarity or difficulty involved, Ribot plainly states that It is a serious
27
error to assert that only the conditions of the emotion can be revived, not the emotional
state itself (153).
There can be no doubt that Stanislavskis emotional memory technique is based
on Ribots work. Ribot was known to the Russian reading public through his
monograph on the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer which appeared in
Russian in 1896. Sharon Carnicke also notes that While Freudian psychology took
hold of the US popular and literary imagination, behaviourism {sic} including the work
of Ribot gained authority in Russia (Stanislavsky in Focus 131). As we saw in the
introduction to this work, Ribot was a proponent of the hypothesis that emotions were
physiological in origin. It is, writes Ribot, the thesis which has been adopted,
without any restriction, in this work (vii), which situates him within the tradition of
Ivan Pavlov whose famous experiments on conditioning the salivation reflex in dogs is
perhaps one of the most well-known experiments of all time. The behaviorists sway in
Russia, and their influence on Stanislavskis actor training technique is confirmed by
Lee Strasberg, originator of one of the more well-known derivations of Stanislavskis
system, when he says, Thats how were trained, not from Freud, but from Pavlov
(qtd. in Krasner 152). Carnicke also notes that Ribots major books were translated into
Russian within two years of their publications in Paris, and Stanislavsky owned six of
them replete with marginal notes (131-32). Carnicke takes care to mention that
Stanislavskis quoting of Ribots work, in light of [Stanislavskis] infrequent citation of
sources should be considered an indication of the faith Stanislavski placed in Ribots
28
theories (130). It is quite clear that Stanislavsky was not only aware of Ribots work but
also used it in his earliest attempts at formulating a system of actor training.
Stanislavski begins his chapter on emotional memory begins by having Torstov,
Stanislavskis teacher-alter-ego, ask his students to repeat an exercise they had
performed long ago. The students were thrilled because as Kostya, Stanislavskis
student-alter-ego, says, [. . .] it was good to repeat something we were sure of and
which had been successful (Actors Work 195). And yet despite the students past
success, confidence and exuberance in performing the exercise, [. . .] Torstov and
Rakhmanov told us that while our earlier efforts had been direct, sincere, fresh and true,
what we had done today was wrong, insincere and contrived [.](Actors Work 195).
This experience sets the stage for a discussion between Torstov and his students on
emotion memory:
Just as your visual memory resurrects long forgotten things, a landscape
or the image of a person, before your inner eye, so feelings you once experienced
are resurrected in your Emotion Memory. You thought they were completely
forgotten but suddenly a hint, a thought, a familiar shape, and once again you
are in the grip of past feelings, which are something weaker than the first time,
sometimes stronger, sometimes in the same or slightly modified form. (Actors
Work 199).
Immediately Torstov turns the conversation to the topic of sensory memories,
asking if students can remember particular tastes, touches, smells, sights and sounds.
29
Memories of the sensory details of a past experience, Torstov explains, are not
memories of emotion. This is precisely why, even though the students performed the
earlier exercise just as they remembered doing it it lacked the emotional truth contained
in the original experience. The students had remembered only the sensory aspects of
the exercise and failed to recall the emotion they felt when they believed there was a
madman at the door. Although the two are different, Torstov goes on to tell his
students a story which illustrates, [. . .] the tight relationship and interaction of our
fives sense and their influence on the things which Emotion Memory recalls (Actors
Work 203). The story is about two men who were trying to remember the tune of a
polka but they werent sure where they had first heard it. Slowly they begin to piece
together the memory of where they heard the polka as they recall the sensory details of
that evening: on what side of a column each was sitting, what they were eating, the
smell of cologne in the air and finally the tune of the polka itself. But that wasnt the
end of it. The revelers remembered they had exchanged some insults while they were
in a drunk state, and started arguing hotly again and as a result started abusing each
other again (Actors Work 202). Torstov concludes the days lesson by telling his
students, So, as you see, the actor needs not only Emotion Memory but sensory
memory (Actors Work 203).
Stanislavski thought of sensory memories as being one of the major avenues an
actor can use to reach a state of affective memory. Carnicke astutely points out that
Stanislavski underlines the comparison [of memory for emotion] with sense memory
by using the Russian word, chuvsta, which refers both to feelings and the five senses
30
(133). When we look at Ribots work we can see why Stanislavski would believe that
sensory memories could be used as a means of accessing emotional memory. After
concluding that such a thing as affective memory exists Ribot then goes on to explore
some of the variations his subjects reported during their individual experiences of
affective remembering. Ribot came to two conclusions which influenced Stanislavskis
own thoughts on and use of affective memory in actor training. First, The revivability
{sic} of an impression is in direct ratio to its complexity, and consequently in inverse
ratio to its simplicity (Psychology of Emotions 157). Second, that in addition to the
direct correlation between sensory details and the ability to recall an affective memory,
there also exists a direct correlation between the revivability {sic] of an impression
and the motor elements included in it (Psychology of Emotions 157).
These conclusions suggest that instead of talking about affective memory we
should instead speak of affective states of memory. Ribots observations about sensory
details and motor elements aiding in the arousal of affective memory suggest that he
was, unbeknownst to him, making an observation about how affective state of memory
can be achieved through the use of two very different types of memory. Those
memories which exhibit a high level of sensory detail are examples of episodic memory,
one of the five major systems identified by Schacter and Tulving. When the actor
engages his sense memory he is recalling the sensory details of a past, personal
experience, the experience of the memory occurs within the minds eye. Memories that
had the motor elements included in it are suggestive of body memory, which is
governed by what Schacter and Tulving have called the procedural memory system.
31
And while those memories which include motor elements can be, and often are,
memories of a past, personal experience these memories manifest themselves in and
through the body. What Ribot takes as different types of details contained in a single
memory, are in fact, indicative of different types of memory altogether. Regardless of
his error in conflating episodic and procedural memory, Ribots conclusions support
my own belief, and experience as an actor, that both episodic and body memories are
capable of producing an affective state of memory in the actor. That multiple types of
memory are capable of producing an affective state of remembering is just another
testament to the complexity of memory, how the various systems work in conjunction,
overlap and influence one another.
Ribot himself did not see any division between emotion and biology and asserts
that, [. . .] a disembodied emotion is a non-existent one (95)--an assertion Stanislavski
echoes when he says, In every physical action there is something psychological, and in
the psychological, something physical (qtd. in Carnicke 139). It is apparent when one
looks at the body of his work, rather than just his work with sense memory, that when
viewed in its totality (unfinished as it may be), The System becomes his compendium
of lures, both physical and mental (emphasis added Carnicke 127). The earliest
portions of Stanislavskis writings represent the psychotechnique as Torstov calls it
(Actors Work 17). But the psychotechnique is only one half of a whole. [The] basic
goal of our art, says Torstov, [. . .] consists in the creation of the life of the human spirit
of a role in a play and in giving that life physical embodiment [. . .] (emphasis in original
Actors Work 36).
32
What is evident in this brief encapsulation is that Stanislavski saw the training of
the actor as needing to focus on two parts. The first - creating the life of the human
spirit of a role in a play is about actors learning different techniques which will
enable them to be able to experience the emotional life of the characters they will play;
sense memory being but one of the ways. The second part of the actors training
focuses on giving that life physical embodiment and on the physical life of the actor.
The totality of Stanislavskis approach is described by Jean Benedetti in the preface to
her translation of An Actors Work as, a unified, coherent psycho-physical technique
(xvi). Benedettis translation is my preferred one for a number of reasons, not the least
being its more inclusive and accurate translation of the Russian into English. But
perhaps the greatest advantage I see in using Benedetti is how he attempts to present
An Actors Work in the manner which Stanislavski envisioned it: a single volume
divided into two parts. Each part corresponds with a years worth of lessons. Year one
is entitled, Experiencing, while year two is entitled, Embodiment. Most of what
actors in the United States have come to believe about Stanislavskis system comes from
the material presented in the first year/part of Stanislavskis two year/part study of
acting. For my purposes the first year/part of the actors training is of particular
importance because of its use of what Stanislavski calls the emotion memory technique.
The first thing we must understand about Stanislavskis emotion memory
technique is that he believed it could be triggered in any number of ways. In order to
understand how Stanislavski utilized the actors affective memory we must also
understand how, A knot of concepts forms around affective memory in
33
Stanislavskys system (Carnicke) 126). Stanislavski believed that emotion lay at the core
of the actors art, and the actors efforts [. . .] must be directed towards finding a
natural way to discover the seeds of human virtues and vices in himself [. . .] So, make it
your business to learn, first, the means and techniques whereby to draw emotional
material from your inner self [. . .] (emphasis added Actors Work 210). The key to
understanding Stanislavskys emotion memory technique, and how it differs from
many of those taught in the United States, is found in Torstovs use of the plural means
and techniques. In Stanislavskis estimation an actors emotion memory could be
triggered in a number of ways. Stanislavsky links [affective memory] to the logical
stringing together of small physical actions [. . . ] to inner action bereft of motion [. . .] to
the actors empathy with the character, to intuition, to the unconscious, and to
spirituality itself (Carnicke 126).
Throughout the chapter on emotion memory in An Actors Work, the students ask
Torstov which way is the best way to trigger an affective state of memory, but
Stanislavskis teacher-alter-ego remains silent on the subject. Eventually, as the chapter
draws to a close, Torstov has this to say on how an actor ought to reach an affective
state of remembering:
Artistic feeling, like the woodfowl {sic}, scares easily and it hides in the
deep recess of our mind. If our feelings will not come out into the open there is
no way to ambush them. In that case we have to rely on a decoy. These decoys
are precisely those stimuli to Emotion Memory and recurrent feelings which we
have been talking about all this time to lure them out. Each successive stage in
34
our studies has brought a new decoy (or stimulus) for our Emotion Memory and
recurrent feelings. In fact the magic if, the Given Circumstances, our
imagination, the Bits and Tasks, the objects of attention, the truth and belief in
inner and out actions, provided us with the appropriate decoys (stimuli).
(parentheticals in original Actors Work 225).
So Torstovs answer to his students, like many professors answer to the question
what should we know for the exam? is everything. Every single exercise the
students have learned thus far in their training can be utilized to reach an affective state
of remembering. Stanislavskis own experience as an actor, as well as his observations
of other actors, had led him to conclude, and rightly so, that no one technique would
work for each and every actor. Stanislavski always resists the temptation to associate
emotion with any single technique, and maintains a multivariant {sic} approach
expressed through a central metaphor [of a bird hunter using lures] (Carnicke 126).
Particularly frustrating for Stanislavski scholars, and myself in this particular context, is
that Stanislavski, despite his intentions, never completed what Benedetti calls a
handbook of exercise that would set out day-to-day, classroom work in greater detail
and could be used in parallel [to An Actors Work] (Stanislavski and the Actor xi). Indeed
Stanislavskis works, regardless of translation, read more like philosophical treatises
than practical guides to actor training. Most of the exercises Stanislavski sets down on
paper take the form of improvisational exercises which feel like they were written to
give Torstov a starting place for expounding upon the nature of acting, rather than to
serve as a practical example of actor training. The lack of any complete, authoritative
35
material, something akin to the handbook Stanislavski envisioned but never wrote, has
been a source of difficulty for acting scholars since Stanislavskis work was first
published in 1936.
Jean Benedetti is attempting to fill this void with her translation of An Actors
Wor,k which contains a set of appendices including not only fragments and notes of
Stanislavskis theoretical writings but also very rough information about specific acting
exercises. Benedettis Stanislavski and the Actor is another attempt to flesh out a more
complete picture of the actual exercises devised and used by Stanislavski. Benedettis
sources in this instance are the notes of Irina Novitskaya, a one-time assistant to
Stanislavski (Benedetti xiii). Its from this material that I will now provide a brief
analysis of Stanislavskis technique for stimulating an affective state of remembering.
Although experiencing an affective state of memory is a natural process, it is, according
to Ribot, not a common occurrence. In this regard Stanislavski disagreed with Ribot.
Stanislavski believed that every person was capable of achieving an affective state of
remembering if they received the proper training. Of course it is now an accepted fact
that mnemonic recall can be trained up, so to speak. Stanislavskis anticipation of our
current understanding of memory can be attributed, in part, to a belief in, the
physiological base of memory (Benedetti 62). Recall Pavlov and the conditioned
response he was able to elicit from dogs. This is precisely what Stanislavskis emotion
memory technique does: it teaches the actor to use a particular stimulus to elicit an
emotional reaction. It is important to remember that in the view of Pavlov, Ribot,
Stanislavski, and others, emotions stemmed from psychological reactions produced by
36
stimuli. In this light drooling is no different from crying or shaking with anger; in each
instance an external stimuli produces a physiological reaction.
Stanislavski breaks down his emotion memory technique into three parts. The
first focuses on developing the actors ability to recall sense memory. Next the actor
focuses on recalling personal experiences. The third and final part of the training
involves the actor discovering triggers, or ways of gently jogging our memory, without
trying to force what is hidden out into the open (Benedetti 63). In the first part the
object of the exercise is to recall the sensory details of past experiences. When
performing these exercises the actor is utilizing his episodic memory system.
Stanislavski believed, like Ribot, that different people were susceptible to different
sensory aspects of their memories. His notes indicate that Stanislavski came up with a
list of mnemonic suggestions for each of the five senses (Benedetti 64-65). The
culmination of the actors training in sense memory was an exercise Benedetti calls The
Five Senses Combined:
Imagine you are taking a familiar journey to a shop, the local railway
station, school. Remember and try to experience everything you see, hear, smell,
taste, touch on the way. Do not invent. Take the time you need actually to recall
each sensation. (Benedetti 65)
Step two of the emotion memory technique requires the actor to recall an
experience from his past in as much detail as possible. In truth it is no different from
the Five Sense Combined exercise. In practice the actor uses the second step to become
proficient in recalling emotionally specific episodic memories. At this stage, however,
37
the memories shouldnt be too emotionally powerful. Some suggestions Stanislavski
makes include: an enjoyable party; when you had a success; when you felt ashamed;
when you were bored; when you envied someone; when you were given a present. The
point of this exercise is for the actor to become proficient in reaching an affective state of
episodic remembering. This does not come easily, nor very often of its own accord, and
so the actor utilizes the mnemonic skills they first developed in the Five Senses
Combined exercise. Supported by Ribots conclusions, Stanislavski believed that
memories with heavily-detailed sensory recall were more likely to produce a state of
affective memory than those with less-detailed sensory recall. This belief is in keeping
with modern memory theory which holds that an elevated emotional state at the
moment of encoding enhances episodic memory, thereby raising the chances of re-
experiencing the emotional state at the moment of recall.
At this point Stanislavski says the actor may discover that emotion memories
begin to occur for him spontaneously while he is in rehearsal or performance. This,
however, is more the exception than the rule. So the actor must learn how to trigger his
emotion memory to respond on demand. The actor begins by recalling a memory in
which he experienced an emotion analogous to that which his character experiences.
Next, the actor improvises in his present circumstances a situation which provokes the
emotion. Stanislavskis notes give us an example of this exercise being used in an
attempt to induce the emotion of terror. An actor recalls walking home with a friend,
late in the evening through a public park. The two of them were laden down with
parcels when, Suddenly we became aware that we could see someone stealing through
38
the bushes (Benedetti 67). The rest of the memory recalls the actors and his friends
experience of getting out of the park. The improvisation occurs as follows:
I am alone with my sister/brother. It is late at night. The doorbell rings. I
go to the door and ask who is there. No reply. But I can feel that there is someone
outside. I put the security chain on the door and open it. There is a tall man with a
bunch of keys in his hand. I shut the door and ask once again what he wants. No
answer. I bolt the door and with my sister/brother push heavy furniture against it. We
wait. After a while I put my ear to the door and listen. Silence. I cautiously open the
door with the chain still on. No one there. (emphasis added Benedetti 67)
Note how much of this improvisation involves the actor physically doing
something. Going to the door, pushing heavy furniture, even waiting these are all
physical actions which the actor uses to help himself reach a state of affective
remembering. It was Stanislavskis understanding that emotions arise not only from
our mental circumstance, but also from our physical circumstances. He understood that
going to answer the door in broad daylight when ones parents are in the next room is
an entirely different experience than answering the door late at night when ones
parents are out of the house. Whats more, Stanislavski recognized that the difference
was manifest in both our mental and physical states, both of which he believed could be
remembered. Of this exercise, Benedetti says, By this process the past is brought into
the present and made immediate but in an imaginary situation (67). Given the often
overlooked physical component of Stanislavskis emotion memory exercise, Benedettis
wording is worth noting. It is, as we shall see, almost identical to philosopher Edward
39
Caseys encapsulation of body memory. One of the unique qualities of body memory is
that it is a tangible manifestation of memory in the present. Unlike the episodic
memories utilized by the first and second parts of the emotion memory exercise, the
third and most advanced aspect of the technique draws upon the actors body memory
as well as his episodic memory. As we shall see in the final chapter of this dissertation,
body memory is one of the more pervasive and subtle forms of memory one that
influences us in almost every aspect of our daily lives.
The ultimate result of this exercise is that the actor discovers in the course of the
improvisation, a trigger physical or mental which propels him into a state of affective
remembering. Once the trigger has been discovered, the actor can then consciously
employ it as a means of achieving a state of affective remembering, a state wherein the
actor communes with his creative unconscious. The actor can now move on to specific
scene work and use what triggers he has already uncovered, as well as identify and
develop those triggers for the emotion memories he will need for his performance. With
practice and time, the actor will have a repository of emotion memories and their
triggers at his disposal, as well as a technique he can use to discover those he will need
in the future. In the following chapters, we will see how Stanislavskis use of the actors
memory has inspired others to do the same.
The interpretation of Stanislavskis system in the United States is directly tied,
not only to the publication of Stanislavskis work, but also to the translation and
editorial choices made by Elizabeth Hapsgood and Theatre Arts Books. These given
circumstances, if you will, surrounding the dissemination of Stanislavskis emotion
40
memory technique played no small part in the misunderstanding of Stanislavskis work
by those in the United States throughout the course of the twentieth century.
Stanislavski always feared that any publication of his work [. . .] would turn
experimental attitudes into dogma (Carnicke 72). It was this fear which kept him from
publishing any material, even though he had been keeping detailed notes on acting
since his early teenage years. A heart attack suffered onstage forced Stanislavski to
retire from acting in 1928. His convalescence was lengthy, and, deprived of the income
he made by acting, Stanislavski soon found himself in dire financial straits. Carnicke
relates the following conversation between Stanislavski and his partner Nemirovich-
Danchenko:
You cant make a living in the theatre, I must never forget that, never. I
have had to search out other ways, writing a book. You probably suspect that
Im doing this for pleasure. But you know my relationship to pens and paper. I
am doing this only from the most extreme and heavy necessity. (75)
Eventually economic pressure won out and Stanislavski, who never thought of
himself as a good writer and found the writing process torturous, agreed to put down
on paper what would later become known as the System. From the outset, however,
Stanislavskis project seemed doomed to misfortune.
As mentioned before, Stanislavski initially wanted his work published as a single
volume. The publisher, Theatre Arts Books, balked at such a large project which they
did not feel would be financially viable, and pushed for a multi-volume publication.
Stanislavski agreed, albeit against his will. Stanislavskis main concern about breaking
41
up his single volume, which now seems prophetic, was that the necessary time lag
involved in translating and publishing a multi-volume work would lead to confusion
and misinterpretation. This is precisely what happened.
An Actor Prepares, the first volume, was first published in 1936 by Theatre
Arts Books in the United States. At the time of its publication the text was already out
of date, as Stanislavski had already drafted several revisions in anticipation of another
edition being published. The second volume, Building a Character would not appear
until 1949. Such a lag led many people, among them Hapsgood herself, to conclude
that the two parts, were separate books and that Part Two represented a revision of the
ideas contained in Part One (Actors Work xvi). This was precisely what Stanislavski
was afraid of and this misunderstanding lies at the heart of much of the dissension
among Stanislavskis U.S. devotees. To complicate matters even further, Stanislavski
had not finished more than one or two chapters of Building a Character before his death
in 1938. The majority of the second volume was translated and complied from the notes
and the few chapter drafts Stanislavski had completed before he died. Creating a Role,
the third and final installment, is even more problematic. As Benedetti notes, the third
part, was never even started and what comprises the Hapsgood translation is
material for a book, a compilation of articles and drafts drawn from various periods of
Stanislavskis life (Stanislavski and the Actor xi).
Despite these obviously fundamental flaws, Elizabeth Hapsgoods translations
were the only available English translations for nearly seventy-five years. This is, in
part, due to one of Stanislavskis more clever money-making schemes. If Stanislavski
42
published his work in the United States, then under International and United States
copyright law, Stanislavski would immediately profit from his work and the future
royalties would go to his family - a deal Stanislavski could not get if he published his
work in the Soviet Union. In an ironic twist of fate, Stanislavskis attempts to provide
for the future welfare of his family contributed to the misunderstanding and
misinterpretation of his lifes work. Even after suspicions about the quality of the
Hapsgood translation were confirmed, copyright laws prevented any new translations
from appearing for a number of years. Aside from a few bootleg copies, notably in
Germany and Russia, Hapsgoods translation of Stanislavski served as the foundational
text for any future translations.
Much has been made of the editorial and translation choices of Hapsgood and
none of it is news. Carnicke points out that as early as 1954 theatre scholars had come
to recognize the fundamentally flawed nature of Hapsgoods translations. The bootleg
copies circulating in Germany and Russia, when compared to Hapsgoods English
translation, revealed mistranslations, omissions and dubious editorial choices. In
particular, critic Eric Bentley specifically mentions the complete lack of references made
to Thodule Ribot in Hapsgoods English version. Hapsgood, in a translators note to
her third volume, attempts to deflect criticism over her editorial choices by stating: I
have carried out once more the task entrusted to me by Stanislavski himself, to
eliminate duplications and cut whatever was meaningless for non-Russian actors
(Creating a Role 1961). However, not all of the complaints about omissions and dubious
editorial choices can be attributed to Hapsgood. Theatre Arts Books insisted on many
43
of the cuts and changes to make the distinctly Russian Stanislavski more appealing to
Anglo-Saxon readers (Carnicke 76). Others have come to Hapsgoods defense by
stating that a majority of the editorial confusions should be attributed to Stanislavski,
who was simply not a very good writer. For me one of the biggest issues when dealing
with Hapsgoods translations is the idea of what exactly was meaningless for non-
Russian actors. To be sure there are cultural differences to account for, and how a
Russian actor perceives the world around him is, by necessity, different from how I do
as an actor from the United States. Perhaps most telling of the cultural obstacles
contributing to the misunderstanding and dissention that surrounds Stanislavskis
technique can be found in the nuance of the Russian language, a nuance which English
simply lacks. Recall that the Russian word Stanislavski uses for emotion memory is
chuvsta which can be translated into English as both feelings and senses as in sight,
taste and so forth. Chuvsta is both the memory of emotion as well as memory of the
senses. In its verb form, chustvovat, the possible meanings encompass: to feel, to have
sensation, to be aware of and to understand. There simply is no English word that
encompasses the same variety of meanings. This leads Sharon Carnicke to conclude
that, the simultaneous physical and emotional associations implicit in chuvstva
invariably get lost in English translations (139). All of these issues the breaking of one
into three volumes, Stanislavskis death prior to completing the second and third
volumes, questionable editorial choices and mistranslation contribute to the
misunderstandings and misinterpretations that have plagued Stanislavskis work since
its arrival in the United States in 1923.
44
Despite all of this editorial static, nothing about Stanislavskis system has had
more of an influence on actor training in the United States than his use of the actors
memory. It was questions over the importance and use of Stanislavskis emotion
memory technique that not only led to the dissolution of a promising young theatre
company, but also defined a debate in acting which persists today. At the beginning of
the twentieth century the Group Theatre was formed. Members included Lee Strasberg,
Stella Adler, Sanford Meisner, Elia Kazan, Bobby Lewis, Harold Clurman and Clifford
Odets. The members of Group Theatre were early proponents of the new style of acting
that Stanislavski had developed and which was all the rage in Europe. Lee Strasberg in
particular became deeply interested in this new technique. To that end he studied with
two of Stanislavskis students who were then teaching in the United States. As I will
illustrate in the next chapter, what Strasberg took away from these lessons was an
unwavering conviction that the emotion memory technique was the way for the actor to
reach an affective state of memory. Stella Adler, Bobby Lewis, and others disagreed
strongly not only with Strasbergs opinions but also with his methods. Adler found that
using what she believed to be Stanislavskis technique made it impossible for her to act
anymore. Experiencing a crisis of artistic confidence, Adler traveled to Paris and sought
out Stanislavski himself. Adler returned from her journey convinced that not only was
Strasberg wrong, but that imagination, not memory, was the key to acting (although, as I
will show in my analysis of Adlers characterization technique, there is no escaping
memory). The tension between Strasberg and the proponents of Strasbergs sense
memory technique and Adler, Lewis, and the other opponents of sense memory became
45
too much for the Group Theatre to withstand, and it disbanded in 1941. This division
marks perhaps the original split in American actor training, a split which has given
birth to the outside-in /inside-out dichotomy which encompasses most contemporary
actor training techniques in the United States.
The distinction between the two styles can be seen in the actors approach to
inspiring the emotion needed for performing a role. The inside-out approach, as its
name implies, teaches the actor how to reach an affective state of memory mentally.
These types of actors utilize emotional, episodic memories as a means of reaching an
affective state of memory. Lee Strasbergs Method is the template for such techniques
and was the first inside-out technique developed in the United States. The outside-in
approach to acting teaches the actor to utilize the characters external behavior as a
means of inspiration. These types of actors use the external aspects of their characters
the walk, the talk, their environment, how they carry themselves, what job they do as
the keys not only to unlocking the character, but also to triggering, in the actor, an
affective state of memory. Stella Adlers technique embodies an outside-in approach, as
do some of the more overtly physical techniques like Viewpoints. This division has had
a marked influence on generations of actor and acting teachers alike.
The influence of Stanislavski, either directly or indirectly, can be seen in nearly
every actor training technique practiced in the United States today. In the following
chapters I will examine actor training techniques which fall across the inside-out /
outside-in spectrum. Each of these techniques is related, on some level, to Stanislavskis
own work. Some of the connections are more direct than others, but as I will illustrate
46
in my analysis of these techniques, they each reflect at least one aspect of Stanislavskis
system. That such a variety of techniques, utilizing a variety of types of memory, can
all be connected, in one way or another, to Stanislavskis system is a testament to his
attempts at developing a true psychophysical technique. Stanislavskis system
straddles the divide that separates the outside-in from the inside-out. New versions of
his work, and a better understanding of the old versions of his work, show us, here in
the United States, how mistaken we have been. Its not a choice between outside-in or
inside-out, but rather embracing both. What I hope the following chapters reveal is
how a better understanding of the actors memory and how it has been utilized reveal
to us today what Stanislavski instinctively knew: there is more than one way to reach an
affective state of memory. You must know which stimulates what, what the right bait
is to get a bite, says Torstov. You have to be the gardener, so to speak, of your own
heart, one who knows what grows from which seeds. You must not reject any subject,
any stimulus to your Emotion Memory (Stanislavski 225-226).
47
3.0 MEMORY IN MIND: EPISODIC MEMORY AND LEE STRASBERGS
METHOD
Youd kill him the man whose memories you carry? Isnt that a little close to
suicide?
-Alastair Reynolds, Chasm City

Our memories make us who we are. They play no small role in helping us to forge a
sense of personal identity, of being oneself and no other. In the science fiction novel
Chasm City, Tanner Mirabel sets out to avenge the death of his employers wife, a
woman for whom Tanner harbored a secret love. After spending nearly fifteen years in
a state of cryogenic sleep, while traversing vast interstellar distances, Tanner awakens
to discover that he is unsure of not only where he is, what he is supposed to be doing
but also who he is. Over the course of the novel Tanners amnesia, a side-effect of his
time spent in stasis, recedes. But Tanners recovery begins to go awry as he begins to
remember things that happened to another man. We discover, as does Tanner, that he
is not Tanner but another man entirely Cahuella, Tanners employer. In the final
pages of the novel we learn how Cahuella, a man wanted for war crimes, had to assume
not only Tanners physical identity but also his mental identity in order to make it past
his enemies. In order to accomplish this feat Cahuella had Tanners memories
48
trawled and then implanted in his own brain via an intricate system of neural
implants. The implants not only enabled the transfer of Tanners memories to
Cahuellas brain but they also suppressed all of Cahuellas own memories, in essence
causing Cahuella to believe, wholeheartedly, that he was Tanner Mirabel. Over the
course of the book, as Tanner/Cahuella recovers his memories he also struggles to
reconcile the conflicting memories of the events which led him to seek revenge. We,
along with Tanner/Cahuella begin to see, quite literally, both sides of the story. What
begins as a story of Tanners revenge morphs into a story of Cahuellas redemption. Or
perhaps transformation would be a better word, for as Cahuella says in the closing
pages, I dont pretend anything. Im just not Cahuella. Not anymore. Cahuella died
the day he stole Tanners memories. Whats left is . . . someone else. Someone who
didnt exist before (Reynolds 672).
This example, taken from Alastair Reynolds Chasm City is set in a twenty-
sixth century world where it is entirely possible for one person to exchange his
autobiographical memories with another or even to transfer them into a vast data
network. It is not an uncommon trope in science fiction and speaks, in part, to
humanitys desire for immortality. Our autobiographical memories are, mnemonically
speaking, what make us who we are. If a way were ever found to transfer ones
memory into another vessel it would be, again mnemonically speaking, akin to
achieving a type of immortality. Another reason that would explain the proliferation of
such tropes is that autobiographic memory is the type of memory the average person is
most familiar with--being the type of memory for specific personal experiences. But
49
more than being just a record of where we have been and what weve done and seen,
autobiographical memories almost always contain some kind of personal meaning and
are the memories that help us to construct a sense of self.
In Lee Strasbergs actor training system autobiographic memory is the pathway
to reach a state of affective memory. As I will illustrate in the coming pages, the actors
autobiographic memory is uniquely suited for Strasbergs technique. And in many
ways, Strasbergs intuitive understanding of the actors memory, as reflected in the
theory and application of his technique, anticipates some of our current understanding
of how our autobiographic memory functions. In the next few pages I will provide a
brief overview of a few its key features that directly relate to the core principles of
Strasbergs technique.
3.1 EPISODIC AND AUTOBIOGRAPHIC MEMORY
All autobiographical memories are episodic, but not all episodic memories are
necessarily autobiographical. The distinction, as we shall see, is a subtle but crucial one,
which I shall address shortly. Strasbergs technique takes advantage of not only the
unique qualities that characterize autobiographic memory, but also utilizes qualities of
episodic memory in general. To begin, episodic memory is, more often than not, a
conscious form of memory. This is not to say that one may never experience an
unconscious form of episodic memory, but rather to state simply that in the majority of
50
instances when a person is remembering episodically it is an intentional act of
remembering of which one is consciously aware. But theres more to ones awareness
of episodic memory than simply being conscious of it. There is a more refined kind of
awareness, which is unique to episodic memory and, necessarily involves the feeling
that the present recollection is a reexperincere {sic} of something that has happened
before (Wheeler 597). This is autonoetic, or self-knowing, awareness. In his study of
autonoetic awareness and memory Mark Wheeler points out that autonoetic memories
include not only the objective details of our past experiences, but also our subjective
feelings about these experiences. While the subjective feeling an episodic memory
contains may be the most important aspect of it for the actors purposes, episodic
memories are not the only types of memories that can carry with them a subjective tint.
The semantic and procedural memory systems can also convey memories that contain a
subjective feeling. What distinguishes episodic memory from other types of memory is
the conscious awareness that occurs during retrieval that the memory happened to
you (Wheeler 598). In contrast, when one remembers semantically, even if the semantic
memory is imbued with subjective feeling, the type of awareness is noetic (knowing)
only. There is no feeling of reliving any previous episode, says Wheeler (598).
The second salient feature of episodic memory for my purposes is its constructed
nature. As I mentioned in the introduction, Richard Semon had hypothesized at the
beginning of the twentieth century that the formation of memories physically altered
the brain, creating an array of loci within our own heads. Semon called these changes
engrams and supposed a one memory for one engram correlation. Today the idea of the
51
engram, as Semon defined it, has been discredited. Technologies that allow us to see
into the brain while its remembering provide clear evidence that there is no one
location that a memory is stored in. Yet Semons idea that memory makes enduring
changes in the brain proved quite prescient. But instead of being localized in one,
specific area the physical changes caused by memory are distributed across a variety of
brain areas. These findings led to the development of a constructive view of memory.
According to this view the process of remembering involves the activation of multiple
areas all over the brain, each responsible for a fragment, as it were, of the original
experience. In Descartes Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain Antonio Damasio
supposes that mediating systems, what he calls convergence zones, help to correlate the
stored bits of memory from the different brain areas (1994). Remembering happens
when signals from the convergence zone activate the various memory traces
throughout the brain resulting in what Schacter calls, a temporary constellation of
activity (Searching for Memory 66) that gives rise to what we perceive to be a single,
unified memory. More recently the idea of connectionism has gained wide acceptance
among some neuroscientists. Instead of bone chips or constellations, connectionists
believe memory is composed of neural networks, or patterns of synaptic activation.
When we make a memory connections between different neurons are made. When we
try to remember another pattern, the retrieval cue, produces another neural pattern
within the brain. If the retrieval pattern and the memory pattern are similar enough
remembering occurs. The result is an engram that is a mixture of past, pre-
established patterns (the memory) and the newly established pattern (the retrieval cue).
52
Such a point of view treats memory like a living organism, always changing and
adapting to new environmental input. It also can offer a possible explanation as to why
particular memories seem to trigger others; perhaps there is enough similarity,
neurologically speaking, for the recall of one memory to cause recall in another,
seemingly disparate memory. Speculation aside and despite the fact that the exact
neurological processes involved in creating, retaining and recalling memories are still
largely unknown, the consensus among neuroscientists is that remembering is a process
of re-construction. The constructive nature of memory not only occurs on a
neurological level, but also reveals itself in the construction of the personal narrative
that we remember as our life.
As was the case with the memory of subjective feeling, the re-constructive nature
of remembering is not solely the province of episodic remembering. All remembering
is, to one degree or another, a process of re-construction. If this were not the case, then
actors would find other forms of memory, such as procedural memory, useless as a
means of helping them to reach an affective state of memory. Again one must keep in
mind that even though the five types of memory differ in a number of significant
respects, they remain inexorably tied to one another. In this particular instance the
constructed nature of episodic memory is what, in part, helps makes Strasbergs
technique useful to the actor. As further analysis of Strasbergs technique will show,
what the actor learns to do is make new episodic memories for his use in his acting.
This process, as outlined in the previous paragraph, would not be possible were it not
for the constructive nature of memory.
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A fourth characteristic of episodic memory which Strasbergs technique utilizes
is also one that is wholly unique to episodic memory: the ability to experience an
episodic memory from two different perspectives. This phenomenon is known as the
field/observer perspective and refers to how we see a memory in our minds eye. The
field perspective occurs when one experiences the memory in the first person
perspective akin to the initial experience. The observer perspective, as its name implies,
is when one experiences a memory from a third person perspective, lingering on the
margins like an unseen watcher. Take for instance the memory of the last wedding you
attended. How do you see your memory? I attended the wedding of one of my dearest
friends a month ago. My memories are all from the first person point of view, her and
her soon-to-be husband standing before an old, stone tower; the warm glow of the
dance floor and the smile we shared as she danced with her father; the centerpiece
getting in my way as I leaned down to hug her before I left. Not long before, I attended
the wedding of my wifes work colleague. When I recall the reception hall I see myself
sitting next to my wife, speaking with the brides old college friend; I see myself
walking to the bar to get another glass of wine for my wife and me; I see myself leaning
out of the way as the bride leaned down to give my wife a friendly kiss on the cheek.
Why do I see the first in the field perspective and the second in the observer
perspective? The reason for this has to do with the emotional contents of the memory.
Studies have demonstrated that a person's mnemonic perspective is indicative of a
memorys emotional intensity. Generally speaking the field perspective is the default
viewing mode for highly emotional memories while less emotional memories occur in
54
the observer field. One of the most fascinating things about field/observer perspectives
is that they are interchangeable. Our memories are not written in stone and it is rather
easy to switch perspectives in memory.
Now let us turn our attention to the features that mark autobiographical memory
as a unique type of episodic memory. Strictly speaking all episodic memories could be
said to be autobiographical in the sense that, since they are our memories, they help
make us who we are. But not all the events in ones life of are equal significance.
Remembering seeing the Miami Heat win the 2012 NBA title, while exciting, does not
hold nearly the same significance for me as the day of my wedding or the birth of my
sons. If I were to suffer some form of memory loss and be unable to recall seeing the
Miami Heat win the NBA title, my sense of self, of who I am, would not be affected in
the least. But if I were to forget that I was married or had children that would lead to a
fundamental shift in my self-definition. These types of memories are not only episodic,
but also autobiographical, a term underscoring the personal, individual nature of the
remembering and its significance to the self-system [. . .] (Favorini 141).
Studies by Martin Conway and David Rubin show us that peoples'
autobiographical memories are organized in a tripartite, hierarchal structure. This
structure is composed of lifetime periods, general events and specific episodes.
Lifetime periods sit atop the hierarchy of autobiographical memory. These periods
represent large, general levels of autobiographical knowledge. Various studies of
autobiographical memory all support the view, as articulated by Conway and Rubin
that this level, "contains thematic knowledge relating to specific time periods" (Conway
55
& Rubin, 103). Lifetime periods are best thought of as long stretches of time, often
counted in years or decades, and can refer to such things as going to graduate school,
living in Pittsburgh, being a father and so forth. Conway and Rubin demonstrated that
lifetime periods often intersect with one another so that being a father may overlap
chronologically with going to graduate school, but each lifetime period often retains its
own discreet, thematic meanings.
General events are situated on the next level below lifetime periods. The general
events level is comprised of summaries of repeated, extended events that may be
measured in terms of days, weeks and even months. Finals week during graduate
school, attending Pittsburgh Steelers' football games and summer family vacations are all
examples of general events. The research of Williams and Hollan has demonstrated
that the general event level is, "by far the most frequent type of autobiographical
knowledge present, in relatively unconstrained retrieval tasks" (qtd. in Conway &
Rubin 154). Their findings have been upheld by both the cued and free recall
experiments conducted by Barsalou (1988). The current consensus is that general
events level is the natural entryway into autobiographical memory.
Event-specific memories occupy the third and lowest level in the hierarchy
established by Conway and Rubin. These memories tend to have more details than
either lifetime periods or general events and are specific examples of the summarized
events contained within the larger levels. Measured in hours, minutes and even mere
moments, event specific memories often come to us in the form of images, strong
feelings and very often demonstrate a high level of detailed recall. To follow my
56
previous examples: sitting in my professor's office and receiving a C on my first graduate
school paper, seeing the Steelers' running back become the fifth all-time leading rusher in the
NFL, helping my youngest son jump into the pool for the first time on our vacation to
Williamsburg, Virginia.
Notice how as I remember from the lifetime to the specific event level not only
do the descriptions of my memories become more detailed, but they also display more
emotion. This change marks the movement away from my episodic memories toward
my autobiographical memories. Essentially the distinction made between episodic and
autobiographic memories is really more a matter of terminology than anything else.
Strictly speaking all episodic memories make up ones autobiography, but not all parts
of ones life are as important as some others. By calling a particular episodic memory
autobiographic what I am really saying is: this is a memory that is important to how
I define myself. As such autobiographic memories have a greater emotional quality to
them than the emotionally-neutral episodic memory.
Most of the research investigating the relationship between memory and emotion
has concentrated on the effects extremely intense emotions have on memory. Two
examples of this kind of work are memory for traumatic events such as childhood abuse
and what are known as flashbulb memories, highly emotional memories for
monumental events such as the World Trade Center attacks of 2001. There is evidence
to support the idea that emotional memories involve brain processes, notably the
amygdale and adrenergic hormones, that arent utilized by non-emotional memories
(Schooler & Eich, 2000). Schooler and Eich tell us that in his 1959 study Easterbrook
57
concluded that emotional arousal during the original event may result in heightened
memory for the central details of the event. This was offset by a lessening of memory
for the less important, periphery details. Conway and Martin conclude that more
contemporary studies support Easterbrooks conclusions citing the work of
Christianson (1992) as well as Heur & Reisberg (1990). Building off the work of J. Park
(1995) Conway and Rubin also assert that there is strong evidence that suggests a
persons ability to recall the details of emotional memories after long periods of time is
greater than that for non-emotional memories. Ulric Neisser and others have shown
that the emotional content of a memory may affect its frequency of recall (2000). In
addition our present emotional state may affect the retrieval of memory, if individuals
experience marked emotion during recall, such emotional intensity could in principle be
conflated with sensory vividness, creating the phenomenological experience of a
uniquely detailed memory (Schooler, Ambadar & Bedikensen, 1997). Basically what
this amounts to is the proposition that a memory is emotional because it exhibits a high
level of detailed recall; or it exhibits a high level of detail in recall because it is
emotional. For my purposes the specific reasons why emotional memories are vividly
detailed dont matter. The fact that they are is what makes them useful in the actors
training.
Of course the emotional intensity of the memories, as well as the psychological
and/or emotional states of the remembering subject, raise questions about the
veridicality of any given memory, especially when dealing with the memory of trauma.
The relevance of memorial veridicality to actor training can thus come into play.
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Perhaps nothing evidences the potential for so-called false memories as the Memory
Wars of the 1980s. During this period there were numerous accounts of remembering
repressed childhood abuse, one of which included the then quite popular actress
Rosanne Barr. In some cases it was concluded that the repressed memories were not
true and came to be known as false memories. Some accused prosecutors,
psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, and so forth of influencing the victim to
remember something that in fact had never happened. In fact, some cases proved that
this was just the case; just as some cases proved that the repressed memory was of an
actual event. Some cases proved that the victim simply misremembered on his own
while others showed that the victims memory was influenced by an outside source,
albeit unintentionally. The Memory Wars illustrate the chaos intensely strong emotions
can inflict upon the human memory, and they raise the question of the veridicality of
repressed memories. The question of the veridicality of any given memory,
particularly in this context, is the downside to the constructed nature of memory. It
also highlights again, that ones identity stems, in part, from the narrative one
constructs via autobiographical memory. These memories may be factually false and
yet still serve to define a persons sense of self. It also raises interesting questions
regarding the veridicality of the memories used by the actor when training in a
technique like the one developed by Strasberg: Does, or should, the veridicality of a
memory I use matter so long as it enables me to bring down the house with my Hamlet?
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3.2 MEMORY COMES TO MANHATTAN
Lee Strasberg is the logical starting point for my examination for one simple reason:
Strasberg is the link between actor training in the United States and Stanislavski. Lee
Strasberg was born in 1901 in what was then Austria-Hungary. At age seven he and his
family immigrated to New York City. As a young man growing up in New York City,
Lee Strasbergs earliest experiences with the theatre, both on and off stage, were with
the Progressive Dramatic Club on the lower East Side. During the 1923-24 theatre season,
the Moscow Art Theatre toured America, and like many other young actors Strasberg went to
see this world-renowned theatre. Strasberg was captivated and amazed by an ensemble
performance that, "was of equal reality and believability regardless of the stature of the
actor or the size of the part that he played (Strasberg, A Dream of Passion 37). After
witnessing Stanislavsky's technique at work, Strasberg enrolled in the newly
established American Laboratory Theatre, founded by Richard Boleslavsky and Maria
Ouspenskaya, MAT-trained actors who had decided to remain in America following the
1923-24 MAT tour. It was during Strasberg's time at the ALT that he was first
introduced to the theory of affective memory.
Strasbergs entire technique, the Method as it is now more commonly known, is
predicated upon his belief in affective memory. Affective memory is the basic material
for reliving on the stage and therefore for the creation of experience on the stage. What
the actor repeats in performance after performance is not just the words and
movements he did yesterday but the memory of emotion [...] (Strasberg at the Actors
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Studio 114). It is important at this juncture to briefly consider how Richard
Boleslavskys interpretation of Stanislavskis emotional memory technique compares
with the original. After all it was Boleslavsky who introduced Strasberg to Stanislavskis
ideas about memory and its usefulness for actors in the first place. It is not my intent to
account for and examine all ways in which Stanislavskis technique was interpreted or
misinterpreted or changed by Boleslavsky and then passed down to Strasberg, but
merely to address those issues pertaining to Strasbergs use of the actors memory.
When one examines Stanislavskis emotional memory technique alongside
Boleslavskys interpretation of it, one can see that the two corroborate and correspond
with one another in several ways. As was the case with Stanislavski, Boleslavsky takes
a more philosophical than practical tone in his writing. Boleslavsky emulates his
teachers writing style; all of the lessons in Acting: The First Six Lessons take the form of a
dramatic dialogue between an acting teacher, I, and a young actress, The Creature.
This being the case, we encounter the same difficulty when it comes to analyzing
Boleslavsky from a practical point of view as we encountered with Stanislavski in the
previous chapter; namely that neither man wrote in much detail about the specific
exercises. At times Boleslavsky can be as frustratingly vague as Stanislavski. In
answer to The Creatures question about how she will know if she is performing the
technique correctly, I answers: You will know when you get it. You will feel the
warmth of it and the satisfaction (Boleslavsky 42). Like Stanislavski, Boleslavsky
displays a clear understanding of Ribots theories, even citing the Ribots Problemes de
Psychologie Affective in his own writings (Boleslavsky 36). And like Stanislavski,
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Boleslavsky freely acknowledges that it is not an easy process; it is one that an actor will
have to struggle with before he is able to achieve the desired result. Both men,
however, agree that with repeated practice and time the actor will become more
proficient at provoking a state of affective remembering until, Finally the flash of
thought will be sufficient. [. . .] a mere hint will make you be what you want
(Boleslavsky 43). Boleslavsky, like Stanislavski, also taught that the key to achieving a
state of affective remembering was not to try and remember the emotion directly, but
instead to focus on other details of the memory. This process can be described as
working indirectly. Stanislavski and Boleslavskys techniques illustrate their belief
that actors procedural memory was just as valid a means of working indirectly as the
episodic memory. If one compares the only example Boleslavsky gives of his version of
the emotional memory technique (40) with one of the few extant examples of
Stanislavskis version (Stanislavski & Actor 67), one finds that both exhibit a high degree
of physical action on the part of the actor. Furthermore, Strasberg tells us that,
According to Boleslavsky, affective memory falls into two categories: analytic memory,
which recalls how something should be done; and the memory of real feeling, which
helps the actor accomplish it on stage (Dream 69). Analytic memory, the memory of
how something should be done suggests a use of the actors memory that is body
oriented and procedural in nature. It suggests Boleslavsky recognized that the actors
body possessed memory that could also be used to elicit an emotional response, and he
therefore incorporated the actors body into his training. While Boleslavskys and
Stanislavskis works share a number of similarities in writing style, theory and practice,
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Boleslavskys interpretation, which is itself a kind of memory, varied from
Stanislavskis technique in some respects. But in the case of the sense memory and
emotional memory exercises, the differences are negligible.
As did his predecessors, Strasberg believed that the actors memory held the key
to inspiring an emotionally genuine performance. And like his predecessors, Strasberg
believed in working indirectly to achieve a state of affective remembering. In contrast,
however, Strasberg believed that The correct process of inducing a response is through
the senses and not through the actors body (Dream 115). When one compares
Strasbergs Method with the emotional memory techniques of his teacher and
Stanislavski, one of the most pronounced differences is their degree of physicality.
How is it that a man who comes from a theatrical lineage rich in physicality develops a
system of actor training that many critics contend neglects the actors physical life?
Strasbergs Method, as well as his writings, lectures, and transcripts of classroom
work illustrate, as we shall see, a conception of memory that is heavily skewed toward
the mentalistic view of memory. In order for the actor to be able to achieve a state of
affective memory Strasberg believed that Everything must be controlled by the brain
(Dream 127). Even though many of Strasbergs sense memory exercises have a physical,
and thus procedural memory, component to them, Strasberg tells us its not the
physical sequence of the actions that were after(The Lee Strasberg Notes 14). In
Strasbergs view, the actors procedural memory is only useful for its ability to be used
as an aid for heightening episodic recollection; to awaken the mind and stimulate the
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imagination in order to make contact with sensory memory(The Notes 14) Strasberg
does not distinguish between memories of sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell and
memories of kinesic, or motor senses(Dream 70-71). Contemporary memographers,
however do make a distinction. Today we recognize that memories of the motor
sense body memories like tying your shoes or riding a bike are a completely
different type of memory than our memories of our five senses, which are episodic in
nature.
Yet we must not judge Strasberg harshly for mistakenly equating the two.
Strasbergs conception and use of procedural memory reflect the prevailing biases
toward it in his historical and cultural contexts. Episodic memory was considered to be
true memory, while procedural memory was accorded very little, if any, status among
memographers in the early twentieth century. This is not to say that Strasberg, and
memographers in general, did not recognize and acknowledge procedural memory, but
rather that their conception of it was limited in scope and understanding when
compared with ours. In their view procedural memory was limited to what I call
performative body memory tying your shoes, riding a bike. Strasberg describes it as
remembered muscular behavior (The Notes 17) and did not believe, as did
Stanislavski, that it was capable of triggering an affective state of remembering. When
[Stanislavski] abandoned his pursuit of the natural, the personal, the internal, says
Strasberg, and changed his focus to the physical approach, he gave up those
wonderful things he found deep within the actor with his original exercises, and led the
actors away from the emotional sides of themselves. (The Notes 151).
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Strasberg says that My own definition of emotional memory is based on the
works of Stanislavski and my teacher, Richard Boleslavsky. I then added to it from my
own reading and knowledge (The Notes 146). As we have seen, and as the following
analysis will further reveal, Strasbergs Method does indeed share fundamental
principles with Stanislavskis technique as well as the version of it taught by
Boleslavsky at the ALT. But as we have also seen, Strasberg differs from his
predecessors on a fundamental level with regard to the actors procedural memory. In
the following sections we will see how this fundamental shift in attitude regarding the
actors procedural memory has produced a technique that concentrates its efforts
almost exclusively on the actors episodic memory system.

3.2.1 The Method
Strasberg's technique emphasizes emotional memory as being the key to acting.
Stanislavski believed that emotional memory was just one way the actor could employ to
reach an affective state of remembering. This philosophical difference is also implied in
shorthand commonly used to refer to their respective techniques. Stanislavskis work is
often referred to as a system. A system is, by its very definition, a larger entity, which
is comprised of smaller, individual elements. It is an apt description for Stanislavskis
body of work: a collection of various techniques that Stanislavski experimented with
over the entire course of his adult life. In the larger context Stanislavskis emotional
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memory technique was just a single element of his larger system; a system that would
evolve and change over the course of Stanislavskis life. Of course Strasberg refined
and developed his Method over the years, but never fundamentally altered its
foundational premises. Strasbergs technique, in contrast, is commonly known as the
Method. Such terminology implies an all or nothing proposition. Either an actor uses
Strasbergs Method or he doesnt. One cannot claim to be a Strasbergian actor if one
does not utilize the Method. One can, however, claim to be a Stanislavskian actor even
if one does not employ Stanislavskis emotional memory technique precisely because
Stanislavskis system encompassed many different techniques.
Strasbergs Method has now become nearly synonymous with United States
actor training. Part of the reason for the Method's continual success in American acting
is its simplicity and apparent effectiveness. There are three core principles to
Strasbergs Method. First the actor must be able to respond truthfully to the imaginary
stimuli provided by the playwright, or as Stanislavski called them - the given
circumstances. In order to respond truthfully the actor must draw his inspiration from
his autobiographical memory; this is the second core principle. Finally the actor must
be able to clearly convey emotion to an audience through behavior on stage. An actor
training in Strasberg's Method begins by developing his ability to concentrate on
memory by performing a series of sense memory exercises. Sense memories, as defined
by Strasberg, are the purely sensory details of a past experience: touches, smells, tastes,
sounds and sights. The actor begins training his capacity for sense memory using
personal, but emotionally neutral memories--what we can think of as episodic
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memories. As the student progresses the exercises become more complicated, asking
actor to utilize his sense memories while performing a task or speaking text. Once the
actor has become proficient in recalling and externally expressing the sensory details of
a memory he then applies the same processes to autobiographical memories; episodic
memories that carry significant personal meaning. There is an elegant simplicity to
Strasbergs Method that is admirable. It is an acting technique which, once mastered,
can be applied in a variety of performance styles and has proven equally useful for both
stage and screen work. The list of celebrated United States actors who have trained in
Strasberg's Method reads like a who's who list: Kim Stanley, James Dean, Marilyn
Monroe, Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Joanne Woodward, Dustin Hoffman, Kevin Spacey,
Ellen Burstyn and Christopher Walken to name but a few. Now let us turn our attention
to a practical analysis of Strasbergs Method and how it utilizes the actors memory.
Strasberg developed and wrote about numerous exercises he designed to
develop the actors capacity for sense memory. We begin the sequence by exploring
the real objects from our immediate environment, which can be practiced daily at home
like the breakfast drink or looking in the mirror and can be checked and tested (The
Notes 16). Breakfast drink, as the name implies, asks the actor to remember the sensory
details of whatever it is they drink in the morning, the ubiquitous example used by
Strasberg being a cup of coffee. Looking in the mirror requires the actor to recall the
sensory details of getting oneself prepared in the bathroom mirror: shaving, combing
hair, putting on make-up and so forth. At first actors are to practice at home, taking
note of all the sensory details they experience while using real objects. In class the actor
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then tries to repeat the reality without the presence of the objects (Dream 134). Again
Strasberg stresses that , The emphasis is not on imitating the way in which he performs
these common activities, but on the ability to recreate the objects that go into the
performing of these tasks by means of sensory memory (Dream 134). In fact, many of
Strasbergs exercises are performed while sitting in a chair thus forcing the actor into his
mind while allowing for a bare minimum of physical activity. This is not surprising
when one realizes that Strasbergs conception of memory is heavily biased toward the
mentalistic paradigm. Although at some point an increased amount of physical activity
and/or text is introduced into the sense memory exercises, Strasberg believes the
addition of these elements should be made carefully [. . .] because we fear the danger
that the lines will become the major incentive, and that what the actor does will remain
only illustration of the lines. The lines should be part of the behavior of the character,
not just an abstract set of words (The Notes 17).
The emotional memory exercise, as Strasberg calls it, functions exactly the same
as his sense memory exercise, except instead of engaging the actors episodic memory
of emotionally neutral events the actor now utilizes his autobiographic memory of
emotionally charged events. As we have seen, autobiographic memories are episodic
memories that have a high emotional content. After finding an autobiographical
memory which satisfies the given circumstances of the scene, the actor begins the sense
memory exercise [. . .] one to three minutes before the height of the event (The Notes
31). The actor describes the sensory details of his memory in as much detail as possible.
We dont use generic words. We use sensory realities. Never mind if it makes sense,
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says Strasberg (The Notes 31). As the memory progresses towards its climax the actor
should be experiencing an affective state of remembering, if he is not he is to return to
the details of his sense memory focusing on one or two of the objects which are the
inciting factors of the climax. Strasberg, like his predecessors, acknowledges that
learning to consciously incite an affective state of remembering requires time and
patience. Once sparked, however, emotional memory must be controlled; there is
always a danger the actor may get caught up in his own experience and lose sight of the
demands of the scene. To prevent actors from being overwhelmed and falling into this
kind of behavior, we give you other things to do, such as daily activities, abstract
movement, etc., so you cant indulge yourself in unconscious emotional behavior (The
Notes 33). In other words, Strasberg uses, in this case, physical action and, in other
instances, text, as containers for emotions. By giving the actor something into which he
can channel his emotion, Strasberg helps the actor to retain clarity and a sense of
purpose needed to maintain control over the emotion without stifling his experience of
it. The actor continues to practice the exercise until he can achieve, consistently and
quickly, the desired emotional state by utilizing his autobiographic memory. With
enough time and patience the actor will develop a storehouse, so to speak of different
autobiographic memories he can use to achieve an affective state of remembering.

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3.2.2 The Mnemonics Behind the Method
Strasbergs Method reflects an understanding of memory that is, as I have said before,
mentalistic. This reflects the general paradigm of memory that dominated the late
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. But in other significant ways Strasbergs use
of the actors memory anticipates some of the more recent conclusions of contemporary
memographers. Now let us return to the work of them in order to see how and why
Strasbergs Method works. The first aspect of episodic and autobiographic memory we
examined was autonoetic, or self-knowing awareness. Strasbergs Method requires the
actor be in conscious control over his memory. The actors episodic memory is one of
the types of memory that we can exert a degree of conscious control over. The episodic
memory system functions in such a way that I can consciously search my episodic
memory, on both the general episodic and the more refined autobiographic levels in
order to find a memory appropriate for use in a sense or emotional memory exercise.
Moreover the emotions an actor associates with autobiographic memories are emotional
precisely because they happened to him. Their potent emotional content stems from the
fact that we know that the things we remember are our memories; episodes of our past
which hold meaning for us. If these memories didnt happen to the actor then he will
not be able to use them to reach a state of affective remembering. Actors and audiences
find Strasbergs Method effective because it produces real feeling (whatever that may
be) onstage. In a sense this is correct. The feelings Strasberg-trained actors experience
onstage are real to the degree that the actors have really stimulated them through the
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use of affective remembering and are experiencing them in the present moment.
Another way in which the actor consciously controls his memory when
practicing the Method is through the switching between the field/observer
perspectives. Remember that studies have conclusively shown that the emotional
quality of episodic memories is more pronounced in the first-person (field) perspective
than in the third-person (observer) perspective. Strasberg uses this characteristic of
episodic memory to his advantage. Strasberg taught actors to use the field perspective
in their sense memory and emotional memory exercises, thereby increasing the
memories emotional quality. For Strasberg, remembering in the field perspective was
an essential element for provoking an affective state of remembering. When you talk
about yourself and you say I am Thats when the [emotional memory] exercise starts
to work (The Notes 32). By the time Strasberg was putting his Method into practice,
Sigmund Freud had already put forth his ideas about the field/observer perspective in
remembering. It is unclear whether or not Strasberg intentionally appropriated Freuds
idea of field/observer perspective but I believe it quite likely that Strasberg was
cognizant of Freuds idea and incorporated it into his Method. Strasbergs writings
illustrate he was well-read on a number of subjects, including psychology and
mnemonic theory, and was familiar with the works of Freud.
Now let us return to the subject of Strasbergs criteria for choosing a memory for
use in the emotional memory exercise. First, the memory should have an emotional
quality thats compatible with that required by the given circumstances. Second, the
memory should be of a particular important moment in the actors life; [. . .] jealousies,
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loves, rages, hurts, or other once-in-a-lifetime exciting or traumatic moments is what
Strasberg recommends (The Notes 29). The third and final requirement is that the
memory should be sufficiently old, at least seven years in the past. Strasberg felt recent
memories may still be too potent, too raw and were more likely to overwhelm the actor
than older, less recent memories. Strasberg reasoned that if an actor still remembered
something after seven years it would be likely that the memory would not be forgotten
anytime soon. He also believed that if the memory provoked an emotional response in
the actor after seven years, it was potent enough to be able to do so consistently (The
Notes 29). Strasberg doesnt discount that more recent memories may work for the actor
but cautions actors against their use because such memories have yet to prove they will
persist over time (Dream 149).
Because Strasberg sets very specific parameters, the actor must be able to
consciously search his memory to locate a suitable memory for use. We have
established the fact that autobiographic memory is the type of memory that we can
exert the most conscious control over. One of the reasons we are able to do so is
because of its organizational structure. Conway and Rubins organizational structure is
based upon a connectionist model of memory and assumes that the event specific
memories are constructed into a memory in the context of associated lifetime period
and general event knowledge (Conway & Rubin 107). Because autobiographic
remembering is a process of reconstruction Conway and Rubin conclude that [. . .] the
type of knowledge actually retrieved can be tailored to the needs of a particular task
(109). In this case the actor tailors his search to fulfill Strasbergs criteria. Without this
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ability the actors search for a memory that fulfills Strasbergs criteria would be akin to
searching for the proverbial needle in a haystack.
Contemporary memory studies also corroborate Strasbergs belief that older
memories were better suited to his Method. Studies on the recall of autobiographic
memory show that middle aged and older adults tend to remember events that
occurred between the ages of ten and twenty-five with more frequency than any other
age ranges. This period of time is known as the reminiscence bump. Memographers are
not sure why this bump in memory occurs, although there are three major hypotheses
as to its existence. The life narrative hypothesis suggests that this period of life
coincides with the development of what will become the adult social identity of the
person and thus remains a potent mnemonic talisman. The maturation hypothesis
suggests that the reminiscence bump has more to do with the physical development of
the brain than with any kind of childhood nostalgia. The cognitive hypothesis
maintains that the bump occurs during this time period because memories are best
formed during periods of rapid physiological change. A combination of all three seems
to me to make the most sense. Adolescence is one of the greatest periods of physical
development and physiological change we human beings experience. And it makes
sense that wed remember more from a period of our lives that we see as greatly
influencing who we are today.
The last feature of episodic memory that Strasbergs Method utilizes is its
constructed nature. Recall how in the initial portion of this chapter we saw how
repeated instances of remembering lead to a strengthening of the cue and the memory it
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recalls. Each time we remember, whether speaking with others or privately in acting
exercises, the encoding of that memory happens all over again. With each additional
encoding we incorporate new information into the memory, much of which is informed
by our present circumstances. Let us take for example my memories of birthdays spent
with my grandmother. These are some of the fondest memories of my life: getting to
wake up late since I didnt have to go to school, not having to share grandmas attention
with my little sister, eating cheeseburgers at the lunch counter of the Murphys Five &
Dime, buying any toy I wanted. But since my grandmothers death nearly ten years
ago, these memories are now tinged with some sadness. The events of my past havent
changed, the happy emotions of those memories remains the same; what has changed is
my present reaction to these memories because I will spend no more birthdays with my
grandmother.
What my example shows is how our memories are the subject of constant re-
editing. If the neural patterns of our memories can strengthen and grow over time they
also are able to incorporate new information about an existing memory; in this case a
change of the emotional response to my memories. The feelings of sadness I have now
about my birthday memories become as much a part of the memory as the original
events due to the continual re-encoding process that occurs every time we remember--a
process that incorporates not just the original events but also our present thoughts and
feelings about those events.
This is important for Strasbergs Method because of the way in which Strasberg
defines sense memory. While originally Strasberg believed that affective memory
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recreated the original emotion his thinking eventually changed (Dream 150). In
perhaps his greatest departure from Stanislavski and Boleslavsky, Strasberg rejects the
notion that an affective memory reproduces, in the present, the same emotion that
which occurred in the past:
The [emotional memory] exercise doesnt seek to capture the emotions
that occurred during the remembered experience. [. . .] How youre affected by
that memory today becomes the emotional memory. To access at will the
emotions youre having right now about the chosen memory that is always the
actors work. (The Notes 27)
This is a crucial distinction between Strasbergs Method and the emotional
memory technique as originally devised by Stanislavski. It also illustrates how
Strasbergs own observations on memory led him to anticipate what we now know to
be the case. But even more importantly, the constructive nature of memory is what
allows Strasbergs Method to be effective at eliciting an affective memory for the actor
to use in performance.
In its most basic sense what Strasbergs Method does for its actors is to condition
them in a way that is nearly identical to Ivan Pavlovs work employing sensory
conditioning to produce an emotion reaction. Pavlov would ring a bell and then give
his dogs some food. After many repeated instances of this bell/food combination
Pavlov noticed that the dogs would begin to drool at just the sound of the bell. Whats
happening here, on a very simplistic level, is exactly the same thing that Strasbergs
Method does with actors, who use their memory of sensory details to elicit an emotion
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response. In Pavlovs case the sense memory was the sound of the bell and the
emotion, of course, was hunger. Strasberg himself says, Thats how were trained, not
from Freud, but from Pavlov. The emotional thing is not Freud, as people commonly
think. Theoretically and actually, it is Pavlov. By singling out certain conditioning
factors, you can arouse certain results (qtd. in Krasner 152). I will go a step further
than this in suggesting that Strasbergs Method not only conditions the actor but
actually creates new memories for the actor, tailored for specific use in performing.
In order to use Strasbergs Method in performance, an actor must be able to
achieve an affective state of remembering quickly. Affective remembering, however,
when it occurs naturally is a gradual process. This, of course is not helpful for the actor.
Strasberg believed that practicing the emotional memory exercise over and over again
would help actors reduce the time needed to elicit a genuine affective state of
remembering. In addition Strasberg taught his actors to Develop one or two of the
objects [in the memory] which are the inciting factors [of the actors present emotional
response] (The Notes 32). The inciting factor can be anything: a sight, a sound, an
object; anything in the actors memory that prompts the first stirring of emotion within
the actor. By consciously linking the inciting factor with a specific emotional response
and through repeated practice the actor conditions himself just like Pavlov conditioned
his dogs. This process is no different from the one that occurs naturally in the everyday
context of remembering.
Continued use of the inciting factors to provoke an emotional response first
establishes, and then strengthens that particular set of neural pathways. Repeated use
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of these pathways leads to an increase in the ease of ability and a decrease in the
amount of time needed for mnemonic recall. When the Strasberg trained actor uses
inciting factors as the way to quickly achieve a state of affective remembering in
performance, what he is actually remembering is no longer the original event; but
rather the memory he has constructed during his emotional memory training. In this
new memory the actor has associated the inciting factor with the desired emotional
response. At this point the actor no longer needs to go through the entire sense
memory exercise; all he need do is focus on the inciting factor in order to achieve a state
of affective remembering. The creation of the inciting factor memory is what allows the
actor to achieve in a very limited amount of time what is normally a much longer
process.
3.2.3 Some Conclusions
This mnemonic analysis of Strasbergs Method has shown us how the Method utilizes
actors episodic memory system and why it is able to do so. This kind of analysis can
also give us some new perspectives on the common misconceptions and criticisms often
leveled at the Method. One such misconception is that a major drawback to Method
training is the fact that the actor must draw from his personal experience. These critics
point out, and quite reasonably, that an actor is often called upon to perform acts
onstage that he could have no possible experience in actually doing. There are also all
manner of stories of Method trained actors doing strange or bizarre things while
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preparing for a role. A favorite of mine is an apocryphal story about Dustin Hoffman
and Sir Laurence Olivier that supposedly occurred during the filming of Marathon Man.
The story goes that in preparation for his role the young Hoffman, one of the more
famous of Strasbergs pupils, spent the night running about the streets of New York
City what his character has to do through the whole movie. Hoffman was telling
Olivier about his grueling experience and asked Olivier what he did to get ready for his
performance. In the version I have heard Olivier replied, Nothing my dear boy. Its
called acting for a reason. Regardless of whether or not this or any version of this story
is true it is indicative of the kind of misunderstanding attached to Strasbergs Method.
Our analysis has shown that the actor draws from autobiographic memories that
are analogous to his characters given circumstances. The goal of Strasbergs emotional
memory exercise is to not recapture a past emotion but rather to use the actors memory
to stimulate the actors present day emotions (The Notes 27). Therefore there does not
need to be a one-for-one correlation between the actors autobiographic memories and
the characters given circumstances. One of the Methods strengths is how it allows
the actor to use any autobiographic memory, regardless of the memorys initial
emotional content. As we have seen our emotional reaction to memories can and often
does change over time. This necessitates a change in the effectiveness of any given
memory used by the Method trained actor. Over time some memories will become less
effective in provoking a state of affective remembering; but if the actor continues
practicing the emotional memory exercises he will find new memories to replace the
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ones that no longer work for him. As long as the actor is alive he will be always
acquiring new memories, new materials for potential use.
Another major criticism often leveled at Strasbergs Method is that it is more
personal therapy than actor training. The idea that actors must delve into the dark
recesses of their memories leads many people to accuse Strasberg of being a
psychological peeping tom. These critics often ignore, however, Strasbergs
admonishment that the content of the memory, i.e. what happened to the actor, is of no
concern to him. As a general rule Strasberg believed the instructor should remain
professionally aloof from his students and not become too involved with an actors
personal life (Dream 149). Strasberg makes it very clear that the less he knows about the
story behind the emotional memory the better; and only in situations where the student
is having difficulty should they share the pertinent details of the memory (Dream 39, The
Notes 32). And even in such extreme cases the teacher should concern himself with
helping the actor focus on the memorys sensory details and not the memorys personal
meaning. Strasberg is aware of the inherent risks that come with asking actors to
remember what can be in some instances, very dark or painful memories. Strasberg
says that he will only push an actor as far as the actor is willing to go (The Notes 30). If
an instructor pushes too hard, the actor may recall traumatic memories that neither the
actor nor instructor is properly equipped to deal with. This very real danger to the
actors mental health must not be ignored: sometimes we have forgotten things for a
reason.
Regardless critic and adherents alike can at least agree that Strasbergs Method
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occupies an important place in the history of United States actor training. As we have
seen Strasbergs Method is the direct link that ties actor training in the United States to
Stanislavskis work and consequently the utilization of the actors memory for training
purposes. Strasbergs use of the actors episodic memory system, specifically the
autobiographic memory, revolutionized actor training in the United States. By teaching
the actor to condition himself to reach a state of affective remembering in performance,
Strasberg devised a method actors have found effective and audiences have found
moving. Generations of actors have embraced its simplicity and effectiveness in both
stage and screen work. And more importantly for my purposes, Lee Strasberg and his
Method heralded a new age of innovation for actor training in the United States. In the
next chapter we will encounter perhaps Strasbergs biggest critic and chief rival, Stella
Adler. The dissention between their ideas lead to the break-up of a promising theatre
company and have defined the parameters of the inside-out/outside-in dichotomy that
has come to characterize most contemporary actor training in the United States. But
before we get into the details, we must first take a moment to reassess our definition of
memory.

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4.0 MEMORY IN SOCIETY: COLLECTIVE MEMORY, STELLA ADLER AND
JOSEPH CHAIKIN
The haze of nostalgia covers their days among their sisters, making those days into
something different than they were. Thats the way today changes history. All
contemporaries do not inhabit the same time. The past is always changing, but few
realize it.
-Frank Herbert, God Emperor of Dune

In the previous chapter we have seen memory as it has often been presented: a private,
psychological affair. Memory is not, however, solely a private affair. Our memories are
also communal, capable of influencing and being influenced by the society in which we
live. Stella Adler and Joseph Chaikin developed systems which rely heavily on this
sociological, or collective, function of memory, though their application of it differs
significantly. Adlers characterization technique uses the collective memory of the actor
in order to create easily recognizable archetypes on stage, thus perpetuating and
reinforcing these archetypes. Chaikin, on the other hand, employs the collective
memory of the actor to interrogate and ultimately undermine the established values
and norms of the collective memory. But, in order to fully explore Adlers and Chaikins
uses of collective memory, it would be helpful first to take a look at the theory of
collective memory itself. Let me begin with a sort of parable.
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In Frank Herberts six-part series, Dune, the mystic order known as the Bene
Gesserit vies with the Emperor Padishah IV and the Spacing Guild for control over the
universe. The Bene Gesserit is an order of women whose goal is dominion over the
universe, and who create, propagate, and control various religions to achieve their goal.
In order to hide their true purpose, the Bene Gesserits cultivate a mystic aura,
encouraging the popular belief that they are possessed of supernatural powers. This
belief is not hard to cultivate, as the Bene Gesserits do possess a seeming omniscience
and nearly-superhuman physical prowess. This coupling makes them the most feared
women in the universe. Even their rivals: the Emperor, with all his military might; and
the Spacing Guild, with its mastery over time-space, fear these women. As Herberts
story unfolds, the true nature of the Bene Gesserit, and the true source of their power, is
revealed.
The Bene Gesserits omniscience and superhuman physical prowess do not come
from some mystic source but rather from their memories. At the time of her death, a
Bene Gesserit sister passes along to another member of the order all her memories.
Everything a Bene Gesserit has ever known, every skill she has ever mastered, is passed
along from generation to generation so that a single member of the order carries within
her the memories of thousands who have come before her. In order to make sure that
nothing is ever lost to them, the Bene Gesserit share with one another the memories that
they inherit, thus forming a large collective memory - the true source of their power.
This idea, the idea of some kind of connection between all members of a particular
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group or race, is not an uncommon trope in the science fiction genre. And like most of
the best science fiction, it has an element of truth at its core.
In the early years of the twentieth century, sociologist Maurice Halbwachs put
forth a hypothesis that anticipated the imaginings of Frank Herberts masterpiece: our
memories are not just our own, but part of a larger system of collective memory. At
first glance the idea of a collective memory may seem highly speculative at best and
balderdash at worst. But recently the idea of a collective memory has gained credibility
among memographers across a variety of disciplines. The work of philosophers George
Lakoff and Mark Johnson has yielded evidence that corroborates and supports many of
Halbwachss fundamental claims about the ways in which social groups perceive and
communicate collective memory. The basic premise of Lakoff and Johnsons
groundbreaking work, Metaphors We Live By, is that despite our differences, our
fundamental view of the world is shaped by the cognitive metaphors we all hold in
common. Historian Eviator Zerubavels Time Maps parallels Lakoff and Johnsons work
in many ways, but instead of cognitive metaphors, Zerubavel focuses on several
different narrative constructions and how they exert influence on the way we view and
think about the past. The underlying premise of both Lakoff and Johnsons and
Zerubavels work is that the individuals perceptions are shaped by larger forces that
are to some extent beyond the purview of the individuals control. On the
neuroscience front, various studies lead Katherine Nelson and Robyn Fivush to
conclude that, memory in general develops beyond basic memory functions to serve
social, cultural and personal purposes through socialization practices learned in
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earliest childhood (Socialization of Memory 283). In each of these instances, the work of
these more contemporary researchers has provided theories and data which reinforce
the basic principles of collective memory suggested by Halbwachs nearly a century ago.
In his landmark study, On Collective Memory, Halbwachs sets down the basic
tenets of his theory of collective memory. First, and most important, is that memory
depends on the social environment (Halbwachs 37). Second, the social environment is
made up of groups of like-minded individuals that Halbwachs calls social frameworks.
Finally collective memory is forever in a state of flux, always adapting itself to the
demands of the present. The first of these, that memory depends upon the social
environment, marks a major shift in the way researchers have thought about and
approached the study of memory. For the most part, the study of memory has been the
province of laboratory studies. Halbwachs advances the argument that the artificial
and tightly-controlled conditions of laboratory experiments preclude the study of
memory in its natural environment, which is a social one. Halbwachs believes that, it
is in society that people normally acquire their memories. It is also in society that they
recall, recognize, and localize their memories (38). Halbwachs points out that, except
when we are asleep and dreaming, we are never truly separated from the influences of
society. The dream state, Halbwachs argues, is fundamentally distinct from memory
because in order to remember a person must, be capable of reasoning and comparing
and of feeling in contact with a human society that can guarantee the integrity of our
memory (41). When we are asleep there is no external reference point to guarantee
integrity. Only upon waking and reflecting back on the dream can I say that it was
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impossible to walk through the living room of my childhood home, turn the corner, and
find myself in my high school science wing. In contrast when we remember in our
waking hours, there is always some kind of external reference point for gauging the
validity of memory: photographs, video recordings, written diaries and, especially, the
memories of others. Halbwachss argument prefigures by nearly half a century the
arguments made by contemporary scholars of memory such as Paul Connerton, Ulric
Neisser and Lisa Libby (Connerton 2007, Neisser & Libby 2000). Neissers point of view,
now known as the ecological view of memory, espouses the belief that any study of
memory that ignores or dismisses environmental influences in favor of purely
psychological and neurological explanations provides an incomplete picture of
memory.
With the exception, perhaps, of a hermit who takes his calling very seriously,
there is never an instance when a person is completely closed off from the influences of
the world around them. Even in cases of severe mnemonic impairment such as various
kinds of amnesia, people may forget everything about themselves family, friends even
their own identity but those people do not forget that they are part of a society. In fact
the intense emotional problems that often plague people with such afflictions most
likely stem from the fact that they recognize that they have lost and cannot reclaim their
place in society (Halbwachs 43). As human beings its very important for us to find
where we belong in the world around us. We label ourselves as husbands and wives in
order to convey that we are part of a group of people who have committed to
monogamous relationships. Whats more, we often tag ourselves with a piece of
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jewelry as a physical sign that we belong to this group called married. We proclaim
the political philosophies we adhere to by calling ourselves Democrats or Republicans
and then slap stickers on the backs of our vehicles to proclaim our allegiance. Clearly
this need to belong is a defining factor in our lives. In our need to belong, we form a
bond with others of a like kind or mind; out of this communion, the collective memory
is born.
Halbwachs calls the various groups we belong to the social frameworks of
memory. Social frameworks can be large, such as a nationality or a race, or very small,
such as a social club. They can also be informal, such as fly fishing enthusiasts. There
is no limit to the number of social frameworks that make up the world in which we live.
Everything from our language, family, and hobbies to our political and religious
affiliations can be considered a social framework. Just as there is no limit to the social
frameworks that make up our world, there is also no limit to the number of social
frameworks an individual may participate in. Participation in a specific social
framework can be by chance or choice. My membership in a political party is a
conscious choice and one that I can change at any time. The accident of my birth
establishes my participation in the social framework known as the Malcolm/Edenbo
family. My choice to get married has made me a participant in the social framework of
the newly formed Costa/Malcolm family as well as incorporating me into the already
existent social framework of the Costa/Long family, my wifes family.
While we have our own, individual memory of our experiences, how we think
about these experiences, what they teach us, and what they mean to us are all greatly
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influenced by the collective memory of the social frameworks in which we participate.
This is not to say that there is a loss of individuality within the context of the collective
memory. It is not, to follow my previous sci-fi example, the insect-like hive mind of the
cybernetic Borg from Star Trek: The Next Generation. The Borg is a bio-mechanoid
composed of a variety of life forms that have been conquered by and assimilated into
the Borg collective - a collective consciousness of a single cybernetic entity. Although
the Borg is made up of thousands of individuals the process of assimilation wipes from
them any semblance of individual identity. Nor is collective memory like Carl Jungs
famous hypothesis of a collective unconscious wherein primal archetypical forms lurk
in the deep recesses of all humanity. So far as the collective unconscious contents are
concerned, writes Jung, we are dealing with archaic or I would say primordial
types, that is, with universal images that have existed since the remotest times. (The
Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious 5) These images, according to Jung, are an
unconscious expression of the instincts themselves, in other words, that they are
patterns of instinctual behavior (emphasis in original 44). For Jung the impulses of the
collective unconscious are psychological relics: remnants of instinctual reactions that
helped fledgling humans survive in an uncaring world. It is, in a manner, similar to the
fight or flight reflex. The circumstances that provoke this reflex in us today are vastly
different from what we would have experienced in the past, but the reaction is the
same. As such the collective unconscious is a psychological phenomenon that affects us
all.
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Likewise collective memory affects us all as well but in a distinctly different way.
Collective memory is a social, not psychological phenomenon. This is the greatest
difference between the ideas of Jung and Halbwachs: the former sees the collective
aspect of humanity stemming from the drive of instincts while the latter believes that it
is a social creation. In other words, collective memories are patterns of learned behavior, to
co-opt Jungs phrase. Consequently the contents of collective memory are subject to
change, and in fact, needs must change in order to perpetuate itself. The contents of the
collective unconscious, derived as they are from human instinct, remain the same even
though how the collective unconscious manifests itself varies from individual to
individual. In the majority of instances, our collective memory is acquired and
influences us on an unconscious level. It may be helpful to think of collective memory
as a pair of tinted glasses. No matter what we perceive, it will always be colored by the
glasses we wear. One may say, write Halbwachs, that the individual remembers by
placing himself in the perspective of the group, but one may also affirm that the
memory of the group realizes and manifests itself in individual memories (40). Our
memories then are a composite of both individual and collective memories coexisting
simultaneously, with the latter influencing our perception of the former. The simple
fact of our existence is enough to enroll us in the collective memory. It is an inescapable
fact of life and, to quote the infamous catchphrase of the Borg, Resistance is futile.
If our memories are made up of both the individual and collective memories that
we possess, it stands to reason that, like autobiographical memory, collective memory is
a constructed phenomenon. Collective memories are not, writes Halbwachs, intact
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vertebra of fossil animals which would in themselves permit reconstruction of the
entities of which they were once a part (47). The mutability of our memory is evident
when we think about how memories degrade over time or come to take on new
meaning thanks to a change in our present perspective. In Searching for Memory Daniel
Schacter briefly examines the case of a painter by the name of Franco Magnani.
Magnani was born a in the small Italian village of Pontito about 40 miles west of
Florence. At the age of fourteen Magnani left Pontito for good and eventually settled in
San Francisco. Later in his life Magnani began suffering from a mysterious illness.
Schacter tells us that:
In the midst of the illness, Magnani began to experience, on a nightly
basis, vivid dreams of Pontito that combined a hallucinatory intensity with a
wealth of minute detail that far exceeded his waking recollections of the village.
The force of the nocturnal visions inspired Magnani, who had never painted
seriously before, to try to capture his images with brush and canvas. (Searching
for Memory 29)
In 1988 a San Francisco museum mounted an exhibition of Magnanis paintings
in juxtaposition with a series of photographs taken of the scenes depicted in Magnanis
paintings. The results were startling. In many instances Magnanis work was
uncannily accurate and yet it is quite clear that Magnanis paintings are also quite
idealized, representing as Schacter says, a kind of paradise lost in which the
remembered world is more beautiful, symmetrical, and whole than the inevitably
blemished reality (Searching for Memory 29). Its this idealized aura of the remembered
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past that Halbwachs (48) calls a retrospective mirage wherein the past seems like a
golden age when compared to the present. In part this is a defense mechanism. True
hypermnemony, or photographic memory, is, in truth, a torment to those who possess
it. Imagine if you remember in complete detail every single moment of pain, sorrow or
embarrassment youve ever had. Our favorable editing of our past can also be
attributed to one of the major types of narratives that remembering takes on. In Time
Maps: Collective Memory and the Social Shape of the Past Eviator Zerubavel looks at the
various narrative forms that collective remembering can take on. Our tendency to
better remember facts that fit certain (unmistakably cultural) mental schemata is quite
evident in the highly formulaic plot structures we often use of narrating the past
(parenthetical in original Time Maps 4). One of the major narrative structures identified
by Zerubavel is decline. Inherently pessimistic, states Zerubavel, this unmistakably
backward-clinging historical stance typically includes an inevitably tragic vision of
some glorious past that, unfortunately, is lost forever [. . .] it is often coupled with a
deep sentimental attachment to the good old days (16).
The idealization of the past occurs not only on a personal level. The origins of the
legend of the Masada illustrate how even more manipulable is the memory of events
we have not directly experienced historical memory (Favorini 116). Masada was the
name of the mountain fortress that some nine hundred Jewish defenders occupied in 73
ACE after the Romans destroyed Jerusalem. In his introduction to On Collective
Memory, Lewis Coser writes, The only source for this account [of Masada] is Josephuss
The Jewish Warthis chronicle remained almost completely unknownand there is no
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mention of it in the Talmud or in other Jewish sacred texts (33). Barry Schwartz, Yael
Zerubavel and Bernice Barnett conclude in The Recovery of Masada: A Study in
Collective Memory that the interest in Masada coincides with the rise of Zionism in the
twentieth century. Masada has become a symbol of Jewish resistance and resilience of
immense popular appeal (On Collective Memory 33). Coser questions why such a
seemingly insignificant event has taken on such meaning for present day Israelis:
Most national commemorations celebrate the origin, rise, and fall of a
nation because these are seen as having had a major effect on its subsequent
history. But the battle of Masada exhibits none of these features. It was only a
mopping-up operation with no special impact on subsequent events in Jewish
history (On Collective Memory 33).
Coser concludes, as do Schwartz, Zerubavel and Barnett, that the resurgence of
interest in Masada is an example of how collective memory reconstructs, an image of
the past which is in accord, in each epoch, with the predominant thoughts of the
society (Halbwachs 40). In this case modern Israel, seeing itself beset on all sides by
enemies, chooses a long forgotten, historically insignificant event from its past and
recasts it as a glorious last stand, a symbol of the resistance and resilience of the Jewish
people. In his case study on collective memory and the play Reunion in Vienna, Attilio
Favorini (116) points out that, While group remembering may be put in the service of
cultural continuity, it is more the case that societies remember selectively to serve
present values. Thus the constructed nature of collective memory allows each
generation to write a history that reinforces its own values. In Time Maps Eviator
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Zerubavel also examines the rewriting of Masadas place in history. Despite the
conventional grammatical distinction between the past and present tenses, the past and
the present are not entirely separate entities (emphases in the original 37). One of the ways
in which the past and present are connected is in humanitys tendency to rewrite
history so it conforms to contemporary values. Such revisionist history is possible
thanks to what Zerubavel calls bridging and mnemonic pasting the processes whereby
the human memory creates connections to integrate, otherwise disconnected points in
time into a seemingly single historical whole (40). Ask a Mexican about the Alamo and
youll most likely hear a story about the aggressive expansion of the United States; a
stark contrast to the heroic last stand for freedom people from the United States
remember when they Remember the Alamo!
4.1 STELLA ADLER AND CHARACTER BY TYPE
Hamlet was not a guy like you.
-Stella Adler, The Art of Acting

The youngest daughter of two actors, Stella Adler was born in 1901. The theatre was a
family business for the Adlers; fourteen of Adlers family would work in the theatre in
some capacity. Adler was raised to be an actor and trained by her father, the well-
known and critically-acclaimed Yiddish actor Jacob P. Adler. Adler says that her
earliest training as an actor was wholly practical, I learned acting by acting (The Art of
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Acting). In 1931 Adler became one of the founding members of the Group Theatre. Like
Strasberg, who joined the Group Theatre later, she studied at the American Laboratory
Theatre. In spite of her previous success as an actor, Adlers introduction to
Stanislavskys system did not go well for her and, she claims, made it impossible for her
to act any longer. With the hope that a better understanding of Stanislavskys system
would help her to regain confidence in her acting abilities, Adler arranged to meet
Stanislavsky in Paris in 1934. Adler spent five weeks studying with Stanislavsky and is
the only American actor/acting theorist to have studied with him.
By 1934, Stanislavskys theories and techniques had evolved beyond those taught
at the American Laboratory Theatre. About the evolution of Stanislavskys theories,
Bella Merlin writes
Instead of true emotion being the end-product of an acting technique,
[Stanislavsky] wanted to devise a rehearsal process of which emotion was a by-
product. In other words, he sought a process in which emotions arose inevitably
from the actions, rather than actors consciously trying to arouse emotions as the
main challenge to their acting skills (emphasis in original 29).
The technique Stanislavsky was experimenting with relied on the actors
understanding of the given circumstances and how they affected the physical actions of
the character. Stanislavsky believed that if an actor could find the correct behavior for
the character in the circumstances of the play, this would be enough to elicit the
appropriate emotional response from the actor. Thus the first step for any actor was to
understand the given circumstances of the play and how they influence a characters
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behavior. Upon Adlers return to America and the Group Theatre, she spoke about
[actions] importance in relationship to the plays given circumstances, thus stressing
interpretation of the play (a key issue for Stanislavsky in his last years) (Carnicke 152).
Adlers adherence to Stanislavskys more recent teachings and Strasbergs insistence on
the primacy of affective memory lead to much dissention in the Group Theatre. This
difference of opinion between Adler and Strasberg became so rancorous that it
contributed to the break-up of the Group Theatre. Eventually Adler, along with Elia
Kazan and Bobby Lewis, whose emphasis on stylization clashed with Strasbergs
insistence on psychological realism, left the Group Theatre.
In 1949 Adler started her own acting school. In the following years she
developed and refined those aspects that eventually became the core principles of her
actor training technique. The following analysis of Adlers technique will draw mainly
from Adlers The Art of Acting and Joanna Rotts Acting with Adler. It should be noted
that although Adler kept written journals about her technique and ideas throughout
most of her life; she was not overly concerned with publishing. The Technique of Acting
(1988) is the only book she published on her technique. In its pages Adler explains the
basic principles of her technique but does not go into much detail regarding her method
of characterization. The other major work on Adlers technique is The Art of Acting,
edited and complied by Howard Kessel (2000) and was undertaken at Adlers request.
It is comprised of audio recordings and transcriptions of Adlers work in the classroom
as well as most of the material from Adlers The Technique of Acting (1988). Rotts
Acting with Adler, an explanation of Adlers technique, also utilizes recordings and
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transcriptions taken from classes Adler taught from the mid-1950s to 1980. Rott
studied under Adler in the 1970s and eventually the two formed a personal friendship
that lasted until Adlers death in 1992. I will also draw from my own experience as an
actor who has utilized Adlers characterization technique on many occasions over the
last ten years. My introduction to Adlers technique came by way of Rott, who was my
teacher and director for two years.
Adlers technique encompasses all aspects of the actors training but it is her
approach to characterization that taps, both intentionally and otherwise, the actors
collective memory. Adler espouses a method of creating character that could best be
described as character by type. Adler recognizes that no matter the specifics of the play,
all theatre is about the human experience of life. If the theatre is to connect with its
audiences, it must reflect something of the audiences back to themselves. Adler taught
that, No matter how unique the character, onstage [the character] must be recognizable
as belonging to some type of group or humanity (Acting with Adler 136). The three core
principles which make up Adlers characterization technique are: rigorous analysis of
the given circumstances, the actors use of imagination, and the process of self-
enlargement. The actor begins creating a character by analyzing the given
circumstances of the play. Adler believed that an actor needed to be aware of the social
context of the play before she could understand the character because, Characters
come out of the social situations (Art of Acting 162). Using the given circumstances to
understand the characters social situation is the first step in identifying the type to
which the character belongs. Once the actor has identified what type her character is,
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the next step is for the actor to utilize her imagination in order to respond to the given
circumstances in a manner that is consistent with the characters type. Adlers belief in
imagination, and not personal experience, as the key to jump-starting an actors
inspiration leads us to the last of her core principles, self-enlargement. Finding oneself
in the character was of no interest to Adler. While she did not dismiss the importance
of personal experience for the actor, she also believed that the actor must recognize that
the theatre isnt about average, everyday life; it is bigger than life:
The actor cannot afford to look only to his own life for all his
material nor pull strictly from his own experience to find his acting
choices and feelings. The ideas of the great playwrights are almost always
larger than the experiences of even the best actor. (Art of Acting 65)
Even if an actor lives for a hundred years, no individual could amass the amount
and variety of personal experience that can be obtained vicariously out of one year of
reading. Collective memory is not only reflected in the living attitudes and values of a
culture, it is also reflected in what a culture creates. When actors enlarge themselves
what they really are doing is increasing their exposure to the attitudes and values of
different social frameworks. This increased exposure gives the actor more raw
materials, so to speak, for their imagination.
In support of understanding the ideas of the great playwrights, an analysis of
the plays given circumstances is the first of Adlers core principles. The given
circumstances include not only the factual details of the play i.e. when, where, who,
why and so forth but also those elements revealing the cultural, political, moral, and
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other values that the playwright either supports or opposes. The theatre is a spiritual
and social X-ray of its time, Adler writes, The theatre was created to tell people the
truth about life and the social situation (Art of Acting 30). If theatre is an X-ray, then
the analysis of the given circumstances by the actor is akin to a doctor reading an X-ray
for a diagnosis. In a 1964 interview for Drama Review Adler says:
The playwright gives you the play, the idea, the style, the conflict,
the character, etc. The background life of the character will be made up of
the social, cultural, political, historical, and geographical situation in
which the author places him. The character must be understood within
the framework of the characters own time and situation. (Drama Review
147)
Its this kind of emphasis on understanding the social, cultural, etc. circumstance
that leads David Krasner to conclude, For Adler, the essence of acting is sociological [. .
.] (153). If, as Adler says, Every play is written out of a social situation, and
characters come out of social situations (Art of Acting 162) then it is imperative for the
Adler-trained actor to identify the social situation in which the character resides and
how that affects the characters thoughts and actions.
The strongest correlation between Adlers sociological conception of acting and
Halbwachss sociological conception of memory rests in the use of type as the basis for
character. Type in this sense refers to the behaviors and values we automatically
ascribe, intentionally or not, to particular individuals and/or groups in our society.
There exist many different types, far more than could even be listed, but some examples
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include: the carefree type and responsible type, the blue collar type and the white collar
type, the noble type and the peasant type. Each one of these types calls up from within
us certain preconceived notions about the behavior and values these types display. If I
were to describe a person as being an overachiever type, immediately a host of
specific personal qualities and behaviors would come to mind. Whether or not the
person in question actually possesses any of those qualities or exhibits any of those
behaviors is unimportant; what is important is that we associate these qualities and
behaviors with a person, based not on our experience of the individual, but rather on
our experience and expectations of a type. Assumptions like these are not only based in
our personal experience but are also, to a great extent, determined by the biases of the
social frameworks of memory which hold sway over us. In some instances a particular
type may be considered to be a social framework of memory in its own right: for
instance the noble and the working class types. Other types are more a reflection of the
assumptions of the social frameworks of memory rather than a framework themselves.
These types tend to be the more abstract, idea-based types that embody an attitude or
quality such as the tough-guy or the sensitive-artist. Regardless, in every instance when
the actor utilizes Adlers characterization by type technique she is, consciously or not,
drawing on collective memory.
The Adler-trained actor begins creating a character by first identifying what
general type best fits her character. At this point in the process the actor uses the given
circumstances provided by the playwright to begin her search for the characters type.
Unlike Strasbergs Method, there is not just one way for an actor to practice Adlers
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characterization by type technique. Rott is correct when she writes that, Adler
offered no single, sure avenue of approach to realizing the character as a type (Acting
with Adler 139). An examination of Adlers own lessons on character types shows that
she taught her students how to think about type in such different terms as behavior (the
carefree/responsible type) or profession (the blue/white collar type) or class (the
noble/peasant type). What is also apparent is that Adler did favor certain approaches
over others. In this particular instance it is evident by the amount of time she devotes to
the discussion and exploration of different class types that class was, for Adler, a very
useful type for the actor. Out of the twenty-two chapters of The Art of Acting seven
chapters, nearly a full third of the book, are given over to Adlers exploration of
character and what she believed to be the five types of class: clergy, aristocracy,
military, middle and peasant. Adler believed that these five classes were the most
recognizable because they have been present, in one form or another, throughout
history and across cultures. Adlers assumption here is right in line with Halbwachss
thinking that, there are no class representations that are not oriented both to the
present and to the past (Halbwachs 181-82).
Halbwachs himself devotes a substantial portion of his On Collective Memory to
an examination of the ways in which, throughout history, class has functioned as and
preserved social frameworks of memory. In the chapter entitled Social Class and Their
Traditions Halbwachs examines three of Adlers five classes. One of Halbwachs
objectives in the Social Class chapter is to illustrate how the social frameworks of
memory have come to conflate professional qualities with personal qualities.
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Halbwachs explains how the frameworks of collective memory have, over time, come to
equate a persons social function with a certain set of personal qualities, i.e. medical
doctors are erudite, cultured caregivers. This, according to Halbwachs, is a holdover
from the feudal idea that nobility conferred not only a title that indicated a specific rank
and function in the social hierarchy, but also inherent personal qualities that made
nobles better than everyone else. Halbwachs writes that:
[. . .] in our society a function represents a technical activity in one respect;
in another respect it represents those qualities that have a social value outside the
profession. In this sense a function is partially equivalent to a title. But where
could society have found the source for the idea of these qualities if not in
tradition? (146)
Halbwachs also says that, It may well be that such judgments often turn out to
be false. Nevertheless in every period and in every society a function is valued in a way
that presupposes in the person who performs it a certain class of personal qualities
(145). Adlers character technique encourages the actor to do this very thing. Study the
professionalism of certain crafts and how it affects the characters non-professional life,
is what Adler tells her students (Art of Acting 177). Clearly Adler believes that a
persons social function exerts an influence on his or her personal life.
Having established the general type of her character, the actor then begins to
particularize this general type according to the demands and clues provided by the
given circumstances. The general type of clergy is, more specifically a nun who has lost
her faith; the aristocrat-type is a land-rich, cash-poor aristocrat struggling to keep up
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appearances. As an audience member your reception of a character is determined, in
part, by your preconceived notions of the characters type. The same is true of the actor.
Adler demonstrates an intuitive understanding of this when she says that One
develops an attitude toward everything (Art of Acting 182). And while Adler does not
say as much, this attitude comes from the collective memory of the social frameworks in
which we are participants. When the Adler-trained actor practices character by type
her collective memory figures significantly, usually unconsciously, into the actors
process. Let us return to the metaphor of collective memory as a pair of tinted glasses.
The tint literally colors our perception of the objects and people we encounter. This is
precisely the kind of influence the social frameworks of memory exert on the actors
attitudes and beliefs regarding types. Even if we have not been active participants in a
particular framework, its influences on us may persist, if a group has affected us with
its influence for a period of time we become so saturated that if we find ourselves alone,
we act and think as if we were still living under the pressure of the group (Halbwachs
73). Metaphorically speaking, we forget that we are wearing tinted glasses.
Recent psychological and neurological research offers empirical data that
support Halbwachss sociological conception of memory and its influences on us. In
their study Socialization of Memory (2001), Nelson and Fivush discovered that what
a parent remembers and the narrative form those memories take are more often than
not mirrored by the child. Such results lead Nelson and Fivush to conclude that not
only what we remember but also how we remember is, to a great extent, a learned
behavior influenced by socialization. In addition to their own study on the mirroring of
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mnemonic strategies between parent and child, Nelson and Fivush cite studies by
Adams et al (1995), Buckner and Fivush (1998), Fivush, Haden and Adam (1995), and
Mullen (1994) that have revealed differences in the narrative structure of
autobiographical memory between genders and among cultures. It is no longer an
issue for argument; the ways in which we remember and what we remember are
influenced, in no small part, by our social environment.
In this instance let us take for example my experience playing the character
Antiochus in William Shakespeares Pericles. Antiochus, a minor role appearing only in
the first scene of the first act, is the king of Antioch who has been molesting his
daughter while killing off all suitors who would take her away from him. I began my
characterization by identifying what general type Antiochus belonged to. Antiochus
most obvious type is villain; clearly the given circumstances indicate that he is a bad
man. Villain however is too broad a type to play. Each individual villain, while
exhibiting type behaviors and values, is a unique character defined by his or her given
circumstances. In order to discover the individual while still maintaining a
recognizable type, the actor must understand the character in his or her social context.
In Dr. Rotts script analysis class she taught us, as Adler taught her, that a characters,
way of thinking on marriage and family, money, government, and conduct of a type [.
. .] derives from the values of the larger society passed on to his sub-society (Acting
With Adler 138). The same may be said, according to Halbwachs, of the actor as well.
The passage from Rott echoes Adlers own admonishment that, Each [character] has
to be understood in his own social setting (Art of Acting 163). This, too, is a sentiment
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that Halbwachs would not disagree with. It is particularly important if the actor is to
successfully play a type and not just engage in stereotypical behavior, which is a risk
the actor faces when utilizing Adlers technique. Using the plays given circumstances
to personalize a type allows the actor to avoid the pitfalls of playing type too generally
or stereotypically.
Shakespeares given circumstances clearly told me that Antiochus is a king;
marking him as a member of Adlers aristocratic class. His behavior, however,
contradicts the ideas of a king that I have. My initial idea of the king-type was a
benevolent ruler, one who does his best to provide for the welfare and safety of his
citizens. Shakespeares given circumstances clearly reveal that Antiochus is not this
kind of king. Another idea of the king-type, and the one that Antiochus words and
actions correspond with, is the tyrant-king-type. This process of identifying the general
type and then further personalizing that type using the given circumstances utilizes the
actors collective memory, both consciously and unconsciously. In moving from the
generalized to the personalized-type we can see how my inherited biases, passed on to
me by the social frameworks in which I participate, informed my interpretation of
Antiochus.
To begin with, my version of the king-type has been influenced by the fact that as
a United States citizen I inherited a different attitude toward nobility than I would have
if I were a subject of the United Kingdom. Admittedly my notion of kingship is
romantic, more influenced by my youthful fascination with Arthurian legend and well-
worn copies of Idylls of the King and The Once and Future King, than by practical
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experience of living under a kings rule. And yet I still have very specific attitudes
about the king-type. Some of these attitudes are the product of conscious reflection,
thought, and education, but even these are influenced by unconscious influence of my
collective memory. Furthermore, my views of the benevolent-king-type and the tyrant-
king-type have been influenced by membership in the social framework of aficionados
of the fantasy genre--an example of one of the many non-institutionalized, or informal,
frameworks of memory. I have an extensive collection of fantasy-themed novels, I
have played Dungeons and Dragons since I was in the fourth grade, I read Professor
Tolkiens The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings annually, my family and I attend
Renaissance fairs; furthermore I have surrounded myself with friends and socialize
with people who have similar interests. All of these factors, and many more, some of
which I am not consciously aware of, have contributed to my conception of the
benevolent-king-type and the tyrant-king type. In this example my membership in two
social frameworks of memory, one institutionalized and one informal, contribute to my
unique take on the tyrant-king type.
In practice, my application of Adlers characterization by type was a much
quicker, almost intuitive process than what my analysis would suggest. Upon my first
reading of my part I immediately sensed that Antiochus was a tyrant-king-type. This
has to do with the fact that collective memory, in many instances, is a form of implicit
remembering which falls under the purview of the semantic memory system. I had no
need to consciously call up my memories of what the various types of kings entail; my
existence within and exposure to specific social frameworks has conditioned in me, and
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continues to reinforce, a particular conception of the tyrant-king type. In what seemed
to be an intuitive flash, I already had a good sense of where to begin my process of
characterization.
This is one of the major benefits of Adlers characterization by type; by playing a
type the actor has a yardstick by which to measure her performance; Adlers approach
creates actors who are more independent and capable of working on their role outside
of rehearsals. For Adler, this was the hallmark of a professional, a quality she
demanded of her students. Another benefit to Adlers characterization by type is that
actors start with a template of sorts; an immediately-available source of inspiration
when compared to the Strasbergs more time-consuming Method. Also, by the time I
played Antiochus I had been practicing Adlers technique, as taught by Rott, for
twelve years, a fact which undoubtedly contributed to my ability to rapidly identify
Antiochus type. What this really means, however, is that I have refined and
strengthened my ability to think, and more importantly, utilize my memory in a certain
way. One may ask: how can actors learn to utilize what is, more often than not, a form
of implicit memory? In order to answer this question we must first understand how
imagination forms the second core principle of Adlers characterization by type
technique.
In addition to using the given circumstances to identify character types, Adler
also believed that, The actors job is to make the circumstances in which he moves on
stage so lively, so immediate that they enliven his actions (Art of Acting 106).
Imagination, not personal experience, is what an Adler-trained actor uses to enliven and
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make immediate the given circumstances of the play. According to Adler, Whatever
you reconstruct from your emotional memory is no substitute for putting your
imagination to work (Art of Acting 83). Certainly, a characters actions and attitudes
are determined, to some extent, by the dictates of the playwright. How an actor chooses
to interpret those actions and attitudes, however, is the source of the actors creative
contribution to the production. Adler states that, In an action you must know what
you do, where you do it, when you do it, and why you do it. But you dont know how
you do it. The how is spontaneous and unexpected (emphases in original Art 119).
The what, where, when and why are provided by the given circumstances. A
playwright can call for a character to be angry, but how that characters anger manifests
in on-stage behavior - outright rage, an ominous simmering or a mild annoyance is
left up to the actor to discover with the help of imagination. If Hamlet was, as Adler
claimed, not a guy like you or me, then we would have a great deal of difficulty trying
to identify with his experiences without recourse to imagination. One of Adlers
favorite sayings was In your choice lies your talent (The Technique of Acting 48). The
actors imagination is the source of her choices in Adlers technique.
Having identified her characters type, the Adler-trained actor then uses her
imagination to behave like her characters type would behave within the context of the
plays given circumstances. When the actor uses her imagination to respond to the
given circumstances according to type; all of the biases of the social frameworks of
memory that came into play when she first determined the characters type once again
exert their subtle and inescapable influence. It stands to reason that if our conception of
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a type is influenced by the collective memory, then how the actor imagines a certain
type will behave must also be under the same influence.
Aristotle was the first to link memory with imagination. It is apparent, then, to
which part of the soul memory belongs, namely, the same part as that to which
imagination belongs (On Memory 11). The link that Aristotle forged carries through in
the work of such diverse philosophers as David Hume, Immanuel Kant, Thomas
Hobbes and Edmund Husserl. Hobbes went so far as to write that Imagination and
Memory are but one thing, which for divers {sic} considerations hath divers {sic}
names (qtd. in Casey Imagining 11). In his phenomenological analysis of imagination,
Edward Casey illustrates how possibilities of our imagination are limited by the content
of our memory. The reason being that, Imagination has no genuine ontological power,
that is, no power to make real what is nonreal or the reverse where by real is meant
having a determinate and intersubjectively ascertainable status within an enduring
spatio-temporal framework (Imagining 82). This lack of ontological agency is precisely
why, by imagining, we ascertain nothing that we did not know beforehand in some
respect (Imagining 7). Even when we imagine nonexistent objects or places like the
mythological Pegasus, to borrow Caseys example, there is a grain of memorial fact in
our fictions. When we imagine a non-existent creature, place or person the image we
conjure is cobbled together from the remembered qualities of actual objects, places or
people, which have been combined with others in order to produce the desired
imaginative image. In the case of imagining a Pegasus we are not so much calling upon
an actual memory of having seen a winged horse, but rather the amalgamation of
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memories of: 1) what being a Pegasus entails 2) what a horse looks like and 3) what a
large pair of feather wings looks like. The imagination blends these memories together
to produce an imaginative construct known as a Pegasus. Imagination in this instance
is like memory, a constructed phenomenon. When actors imagine, they draw from the
wealth of experiences contained within their memory. The actor can consciously direct
her imagination, setting up the parameters of her imagination within the confines of the
given circumstances provided. Regardless of intent, however, the implicit influence of
collective memory upon our consciousness remains unchanged. Halbwachs
admonishes his readers not to forget that even our imagination falls under the influence
of collective memory (49).
Adlers belief in the power of imagination is quite clear as she writes: You must
always fill the stage with imagination. Surround yourself with it, and Ninety-nine
percent of what you see and use on the stage comes from imagination, and Aspects of
your imaginative powers will startle you (Art of Acting 56; 60; 73). Imagination was
also, in Adlers estimation, a reflection of the actors collective memory:
Your imagination consists of your ability to recall things youve
never thought of. In order to do this readily, you must comprehend how
rich your memory is. You have a bank account that you know nothing
about, for the memory of Man is such that he forgets nothing he had ever
seen, or heard, or read about or touched. (Art of Acting 50)
From this, it sounds as if Adler was familiar with Jungs notion of the collective
unconscious. Particularly the phrase, the memory of Man is reminiscent of Jungs own
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idea of primordial memories. In another passage Adler states that, American actors
greatly underestimate their wealth of human, or national, memory which has much
more of a Halbwachsian feel to it (Art of Acting 50). While my research has not turned
up any conclusive evidence one way or another, I believe it to be a near certainty that
Adler was familiar with Jungs theories and possible that she could have read or been
familiar with Halbwachss theories; On Collective Memory appeared in English in 1950. I
do not think it likely that she did encounter Halbwachs; regardless, the passages above
illustrate Adler clearly believed in some kind of collective memory and believed it
could be used by the actor in her art. Whats more, Adlers belief and technique
demonstrate a reliance on a conception of memory that only has recently gained general
acceptance among memographers.
Adlers belief in an actors bank account of memory leads us to the last of her
core principles: self-enlargement. Adler believed that drama, at least the best of drama,
was not about the average, everyday experiences of life. It was bigger, grander than
life. There is absolutely no correlative an actor can draw on from his own experiences
that could ever compare to the moment when the storm breaks in King Lear. Certainly
an actor may have had a similar experience on a much smaller scale, but Shakespeares
work demands a grandeur that is not to be found in our daily lives. Of largeness and
the American actor Adler says:
Part of the problem is you tend to see actions as merely personal.
You dont put them in larger perspectives. When Eliza Doolittle finally
defies Henry Higgins, Shaw is not just describing a former flower girl
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telling off a professor of phonetics. Hes writing about the servant class
raising itself to the level of its masters. (Art of Acting 155)
Adler tells her students that, Small facts of life will reveal the large meanings.
Immense size comes from understanding your relationship to everything you come into
contact with ideas, people, objects, experiences (Art of Acting 166). She encouraged
her students to form these relationships by attending lectures, visiting museums,
reading and trying new experiences. The goal of self-enlargement is, as the name
implies, to enlarge the actors perspective of the world. You were born into a pattern
of life, says Adler, You must begin entering into other peoples lives to help you get
beyond that boring, personal, egocentric quality you take for real life (Art of Acting
64-65). By moving beyond her own perspective of the world, the actor opens herself up
to new experiences, new ideas and new ways of thinking about the world all of which
can potentially be of use to the actor when creating a character. By taking elements
you observe in life, says Adler, you can develop qualities in your acting life that you
dont ordinarily call upon in your personal life (Art of Acting 179). One of the ways in
which Adler taught her students to accomplish this was by looking to an object or to
shop in nature (Rott 140) for examples that are similar to the characters type. In her
example Rott explains how the image of a city bus can be used to the play a boss-type
(140-141). Adler believed that the actor could find the necessary inspiration for
characterization in almost anything from Beethovens ninth symphony to a lone
dandelion in an abandoned city lot. Consequently the actor does not need to find a
direct correspondence with the characters type; anything that suggests the type to actor
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can be utilized. In Rotts example the actor doesnt try to play a bus but rather brings
the attitude of a city bus to her characterization of the boss-type. In addition to looking
for examples of type from nature and objects, Adler also taught her students to look for
examples of type in cultural artifacts. Adler tells her students that the, One thing an
actor cannot be is ignorant. An actor has to read. He has to know paintings and music,
because they help him understand the past. They provide nourishment for his
imagination (Art of Acting 73). Self-enlargement not only increases an actors
autobiographical memory but also broadens an actors exposure to the collective
memory contained in the literature, music and artwork of other cultures and times.
Halbwachs talks about how collective memory can form and, to some extent,
transmit itself in tangible ways. Up until now we have been conceiving of collective
memory only as a mentalistic form of memory, but this is precisely the kind of prejudice
among memographers that Halbwachs was working against. According to Halbwachs,
collective memory reconstructs [the past] with the aid of material traces, rites, texts,
and traditions left behind by that past (119). The ways in which collective memory
can, and does tangibly manifest in our daily lives are taken up by Paul Connerton (How
Societies Remember) and Joseph Roach (Cities of the Dead: Circum-Atlantic Performance).
Both authors see performance as a way in which collective memory can physically
manifest itself. Performance, and I use the term here to encompass any kind of learned,
rehearsed activity; is the means by which collective memory is sustained, transmitted
and transformed across generations. The range of activities Connerton and Roach cover
between them, from the Nazi calendar and table manners to cemeteries and Mardi Gras,
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illustrates how virtually anything can become co-opted as a repository of collective
memory. There is, as Halbwachs concludes, in short no object upon which we
reflect that cannot serve as a point of departure, through an association of ideas, to
retrieve some thought which immerses us again, in the distant or recent past [. . .] (61).
Now let us return to my previous example of creating the character of Antiochus
to see how the core principles of imagination and self-enlargement work in conjunction
with type to produce a unique, yet recognizable, character. Having already established
Antiochuss type I used my imagination to behave the way I believe a tyrant-king-type
would behave in the given circumstances provided. I imagined how a tyrant-king
would act by recalling other examples of tyrant-kings, either from my own past or from
fictitious examples found in literature, opera, other plays, films and so forth.
Remember these examples do not need to be actual tyrant-kings, but merely suggestive
of attitudes and behaviors I associate with the tyrant-king type. In this particular
instance I found one particular image of the tyrant-king-type to be the most effective for
me; the Emperor Palpatine from the original Star Wars trilogy. Taking Palpatine as my
template for the tyrant-king-type I then imagined how a man like him, a man who is the
embodiment of the dark side of humanity, would behave in the given circumstances
provided by Shakespeare. I then used my imagination to inform my performance in
rehearsals and performance because, according to Adler, Creating imaginatively is
what acting is all about (Art of Acting 73).
Mnemonically speaking what occurs when an actor utilizes Adlers
characterization by type is somewhat less straightforward than the technique itself. We
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have already seen how the social frameworks of memory influence the actors image of
and personal attitudes towards type. We have also seen how our capacity for
imagination is determined by our memorial capacity, as well as how the actors practice
of self-enlargement increases her exposure to tangible artifacts of collective memory.
Until this point I have been emphasizing how the actors collective memory is utilized
by Adlers characterization technique. I would be remiss, however, if I did not
acknowledge how the actors episodic memory system also plays into Adlers
technique. When an actor uses imagination to create and play a character she is
drawing from her memories of the types she has experience of, either personally or
through self-enlargement. This type of remembering is an example of explicit, episodic
and often autobiographic remembering. By using the Emperor Palpatine as inspiration
for type I was drawing from my episodic memories of having seen the films The Empire
Strikes Back and The Return of the Jedi. In this instance I was not using any one, specific
memory of Palpatine, but rather a summation of all my memories of having seen
Palpatine in the films. This type of remembering, as we saw in the previous chapter, is
autobiographic remembering on the general event level.
But just because the actor utilizes her episodic memory does not mean she is not
also utilizing her collective memory as well. In my example, my episodic memories of
Emperor Palpatine do not just contain my experiences of Palpatine but also include my
own biases and attitudes towards the character. Recall that autobiographic memories
contain more than just the factual information of a memory; they also contain the
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memories of our thoughts and feelings. According to Halbwachs, even these types of
memories are subject to the implicit influence of collective memory.
[. . .] there are no perceptions that can be called purely exterior, since
when a member of the group perceives an object, he gives it a name and arranges
it into a specific category. In other words, he conforms to the groups
conventions, which supply his thought as they supply the thought of others.
(168)
A convention of the group Star Wars fans is that Emperor Palpatine is the
embodiment of evil. From Palpatines pitch black robe and cowl to his twisted physical
appearance like a reverse Dorian Grey--George Lucass symbolism unsubtly but
clearly indicates that Palpatine is representative of the darker side of human nature.
Likewise, Shakespeare presents us with a picture of humanitys dark side in Antiochus.
Like Lucas did with Palpatine, I chose to reflect the darkness of Antiochuss soul in my
physical characterization of him. I adopted a twisted and hunched posture, affecting a
club foot. Of particular inspiration to me was the cadence of Palpatines speech with its
slight over-enunciation and disdainful tone. Another actor, one who does not
participate in the social framework Star Wars fans might find inspiration for
Antiochus in another example of the tyrant-king-type, but for me no other example
epitomizes this type as much as Emperor Palpatine. This is a function not only of my
episodic memory, but also of my collective memory. Once again, and not for the last
time, we see how we can never truly speak of just a single type of memory; rather, we
should think of memory as being predominantly one type or another.
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Now that we have seen how collective memory functions within the overall
context of memory as well as the specific context of Adlers characterization by type, I
would like to examine a few of the benefits and drawbacks commonly associated with
her technique. Of all the actor training techniques examined in this dissertation, Adlers
is the most text-based. Because the actors character work is rooted in the text and not
in style of acting, Adlers training technique can be applied to any style of performance.
According to Adler, a plays style - realism, surrealism, naturalism and so forth - is an
outer expression of the technical and performative conventions of a production. The
work an actor must do on character remains the same regardless of the outward form
the presentation of that character will take. In my own work as an actor I can attest to
the versatility of Adlers characterization method. In fact I intentionally chose my
Antiochus example to illustrate how characterization by type can be applied to more
than just Realism, disproving a common misconception regarding Adlers technique.
To be sure some plays are more naturally suited than others for use with Adlers
characterization technique. But even in the case of a play like Waiting for Godot (in
which I was directed by Rott), the core principles of Adlers technique can be applied.
Beckett provides a set of given circumstances for the world he creates. The actors
approach to character doesnt change just because the given circumstances are strange
or unfamiliar. They still influence the characters objectives and actions just like the
given circumstances of a more realistic play. The actors use of imagination also
remains unchanged. If there is any difference it may lie in the actors increased use of
self-enlargement. When faced with a radically different world such as the one Beckett
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creates, I found it very helpful to rely heavily on works of art, music and literature
anything really that seemed to me to capture the essence of Becketts work.
Characterizing Gogo using Adlers technique was, for me, no different from when I did
the same with Vanya, a far more realistic character in a far more realistic play.
Another major benefit for the actor training in Adlers technique is the
independence it fosters in the actor. A major goal of Adlers was to train actors who
didnt need constant guidance or input from a director. As any actor can tell you, the
transition from the classroom or studio to the professional stage can be a difficult one.
The professional working environment is not always as supportive and nurturing as a
classroom can be. Adlers training technique encourages actors to be self-sufficient. An
Adler-trained actor never needs to ask a director, Whats my motivation? because a
solid understanding of the given circumstances precludes exactly this type of question.
As a result directors working with Adler-trained actors tend to spend more time in
rehearsal working the play and less time having to tell the actors about the play, its
circumstances and themes.
Increased independence also fosters greater creativity on the actors part. By
feeling confident in her understanding of the given circumstances and how they affect
the characters behavior, the actor is empowered to take risks and make bold choices
so long as they are supported by the given circumstances of the play. This goes hand in
hand with the final advantage of Adlers system, which is the development of the actor
as a human being. Drama is about life. The more an actor practices self-enlargement
the more life she will experience. The more life she experiences, the greater the range of
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imaginative possibilities for her use on the stage. But the unspoken side-effect is that an
Adler-trained actor who has taken the principle of self-enlargement seriously will live a
full, interesting and well-rounded life that makes her a better actor, and possibly, a
better person.
This is not to say that Adlers technique doesnt also have its drawbacks. Despite
its versatility across a range of theatrical styles, the text-based nature of Adlers
technique makes it difficult to apply to non-text based performances. Additionally
Adler-trained actors run the risk of over-intellectualizing in their approach to the text.
In some ways the rigorous textual analysis called for by Adler can get in the way of the
larger process of characterization. Some actors may find that an overabundance of
choices prevents them from making any one choice. Actors must be always thinking,
this is true, but actors must also be able to give over control on occasion and go where
their imagination leads them.
Another drawback is the lack of acting exercises for the actor to practice Adlers
technique outside of the classroom. Certainly analysis of the given circumstances can be
practiced outside of the classroom, and self-enlargement by its very definition is an
outside class activity, but neither of these involves any actual acting. In this respect
Adlers technique embraces an attitude of sink-or-swim. This can be a frustrating
experience for actors and Adlers classes often had a high rate of attrition. Dr. Rott
once related to me that when she began at the Adler Conservatory (now the Stella Adler
Studio of Acting) her class contained something close to thirty students. At the end of
the two-year curriculum, only a handful remained. This does not reflect an attitude of
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culling the herd as much as it reflects Adlers own experience of learning how to act.
There is no gradual buildup to the full technique like there is in Strasbergs method. The
actor learns as Adler did, by doing.

4.2 JOSEPH CHAIKIN: SUBVERTING THE SETUP
Until we can hear the dominant voices of those ghosts whom we contain, we cannot
control, to any degree, whom we are to become.
-Joseph Chaikin, The Presence of the Actor

Joseph Chaikins inclusion in a chapter dealing with the sociological formation of
memory will come as no surprise to anyone who is familiar with his work. Chaikin
makes it quite clear that he believes the individual is influenced by, observable
political-social forces which move irrevocably through all of us who are alive at the
same time in history (The Presence of the Actor 11-12). Even a cursory reading of
Presence reveals that Chaikin demonstrates a keen awareness of and interest in how the
frameworks of society influence an individuals attitudes, beliefs and values. Although
there is no evidence that Chaikin was ever exposed to Maurice Halbwachss work, the
observable political-social forces Chaikin speaks of are the same thing as Halbwachss
social frameworks. A few of those mentioned by Chaikin include government, the
commercial theatre and popular culture. These are, in Halbwachsian terms, examples
of the instruments used by the collective memory (40). Both Chaikin and Halbwachs
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believe, along with Paul Connerton that, prior to any single experience, our mind is
already predisposed with a framework of outlines [. . .] (Connerton 6). This
predisposed attitude is what Chaikin calls the big setup (Presence 12). One can see the
pejorative attitude implied in Chaikins deliberate use of the term setup to refer to the
dominant social attitudes and values of a society. To be set up implies that a kind of
scam or confidence act is being pulled on one. This is precisely what Chaikin believes is
happening. The setup conditions the individual to think and behave in particular
patterns because We compose ourselves from the cultural models around us (Presence
13). These patterns, in Chaikins estimation, are inherently conservative, designed to
maintain the status quo of the dominant social institutions, often at the expense of the
individual. As we have seen, Halbwachs also believes that the individual is
conditioned by the dominant frameworks of memory - the setup in Chaikins
terminology - to think and act in ways that conform to the attitudes and values
embraced by those dominant social frameworks. Halbwachs concludes that this
process of conditioning is one of the ways in which, the memory of the group realizes
and manifests itself in individual memories (40). As we shall see, Chaikins technique
is an open process wherein the actor learns how to identify, interrogate, challenge, and
even perhaps transcend those biases whispered to him by the ghostly voices of the
social frameworks of memory.
Before we begin a more in-depth examination of Chaikins core principles, a brief
biographical overview will help to illustrate how Chaikin experienced, in his own life,
the ways in which the setup influences peoples attitudes and values. These
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experiences were quite influential on Chaikin. An early childhood bout with rheumatic
fever left Chaikin with permanent heart damage that he would have to deal with
throughout the remainder of his life. At age ten he was sent from his Brooklyn home to
live in a childrens cardiac hospital in Florida. For the next two years he was virtually
living on his own. Chaikin recalls that it was at this young age that he first learned how
playing a socially acceptable role could get a person what they wanted. Chaikin says
he, had to learn how to be lovable to receive attention and affection from the staff of
the hospital (Blumenthal 8). After his discharge, Chaikin returned to his family, who
had since relocated from Brooklyn, New York to Des Moines, Iowa. In her study of
Chaikins life and work Eileen Blumenthal notes:
Chaikin became expert, during this period, at maintaining the social mask.
He concealed his unfashionable medical problems and, since Jews were
considered an oddity (at best) among his peers, he hid his background.
Meanwhile, he discovered that he was unacceptable to the mainstream in still
another way: Chaikin disguised his bisexuality as well. Carefully navigating
around these secrets, he passed himself off as the all-American teenager.
(parenthetical in original 8)
It is easy to imagine how in his youth Chaikin must have yearned for a social
framework which would place his own uniqueness within a memorialized context; a
social framework which felt genuine to him, one wherein he was allowed to be who he
really was. Chaikins sense of self differed so radically from the norms endorsed and
promoted by the dominant social frameworks of his time that it may have made him
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feel as if he was being setup for failure. This yearning for belonging, for community,
reveals itself in Chaikins technique in his emphasis on the creation of a community
between the actors and the audience. These same experiences also taught Chaikin, at a
very early age, how to identify and fulfill societal expectations. When viewed in the
larger context of Chaikins theatrical work, it is rather easy to surmise, as Blumenthal
does, that, These early experiences affected Chaikin deeply and helped to shape his
later work, while also giving him, keen perspective on social myths and
relationships (Blumenthal 9). A perspective born at least partly out of Chaikins desire
to discover a social framework capable of embracing him in all of his exceptionalities.
After studying philosophy and theatre for three years at Drake University,
Chaikin dropped out and, like so many other young actors, moved to New York City to
pursue his professional career. At this point in his life Chaikin was not unlike many of
the other young actors struggling to make it in New York. According to Chaikin, he
was consumed with being discovered in the earlier part of his career. For the young
Chaikin all the training and productions were simply stepping stones on the way to
being discovered. And when youre discovered, says Chaikin, its the beginning of
the second life. You go into another orbit (qtd. in Blumenthal 10). Chaikin did
eventually reach another orbit, but it was one that couldnt have been farther from his
initial dream of making it as an actor.
In 1960 Chaikin was offered a part in a production by The Living Theater.
Chaikin took on the role for the paycheck and exposure, not out of any kind of
commitment to the philosophies of Judith Melina and Julian Beck. It was not long,
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however, before Chaikin became a regular member of the company. When The Living
Theater staged Bertolt Brechts Man is Man Chaikin was cast in the lead role of Galy
Gay. This experience would forever alter the course of Chaikins life, thoughts and
work in the theatre. Until the Brecht play, says Chaikin, I had been interested in a
fancy career for myself as an actor, and I thought the opportunity to play [Galy Gay]
would give me all the chance in the world to further this career (qtd. in Blumenthal
49). As he learned more about Brechts theories on theatre Chaikins whole attitude
toward the theatre and being a star changed. As I played it night after night, Chaikin
relates to Robert Pasolli, I got very involved with the questions that were brought up
in it. And I had a kind of dismay, a disillusionment with the promises that I was
hoping would become my life (qtd. in Blumenthal 12). Of this experience Chaikin
would later say that he felt as he was, as an actor, falling prey to the same process that
Galy Gay falls victim to in the play namely the dehumanization of the individual by
society. Ironically this production that made Chaikin reassess and ultimately abandon
his quest for stardom would garner him his first great critical acclaim and the first of
several Obie awards.
In 1963 when The Living Theatre went into its European exile Chaikin chose to
remain behind. It was during this period of his life that Chaikins place in the theatre
world started to become clear to him. He gathered a group of like-minded actors to
form a workshop dedicated to exploring various questions and possibilities for acting.
Composed of other actors from The Living Theatre that did not go abroad, as well as
several students from Nola Chiltons recently-defunct acting class, this group went on
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to become the Open Theater. The members of the group chose the name Open Theater
because, Chaikin says, it implied a susceptibility to continue to change and would
serve to remind us of that early commitment to stay in process (qtd. in Blumenthal 15).
From its origins as a private, experimental theatre laboratory, the Open Theater, and
Joseph Chaikin himself, went on to achieve renown and fame in both America and
Europe thanks to groundbreaking productions like The Serpent, The Mutation Show,
Terminal and America Hurrah!. After ten very productive and sometimes stormy
years, Chaikin disbanded the Open Theater in 1973. Chaikin continued his own
investigations and experiments in theatre through a variety of other projects, most
notably the Winter Project conducted in the mid 1970s and his collaborations with
other artists, particularly playwright Sam Shepard. Until his death in 2003 Chaikin
continued to push the boundaries of his own and others ideas of what theatre entails.
The first core principle of Chaikins training technique is, ironically, that there
are no core principles. There is no principle, Chaikin writes, I have held in absolute
terms. Not one. (112). Chaikins technique, unlike those examined thus far, is not a
systematized approach to acting. In fact he actively resisted any systematizing of his
ideas to such an extent that he disbanded the Open Theater because he was afraid of it
becoming, embalmed as an institution (qtd. in Blumenthal 25). Chaikin valued
exploration and discovery far more than devising a system of set principles. In The
Presence of the Actor Chaikin writes: Theories and systems on paper are seldom what
they are when they are an active process. Once on paper they get frozen by their most
serious adherents, become intractable, and are applied for all occasions (34). This is
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precisely what Paul Connerton refers to as inscribing practice in How Societies Remember
(73). Chaikin believed that zealous devotion to any one system of acting limited the
actors potential for personal discovery. Such zealous devotion is not unlike that
demonstrated by certain elements of religious believers. Both Connerton and
Halbwachs acknowledge how religious ideas, once formulated and recorded either in
a literal process of transcription to the written word or through the creation of religious
rituals leads to the inevitable conflict between those who wish to adhere to what they
believe to be the original intention behind the written words and those who wish to
understand how the written word applies to the current cultural context. Chaikin
wished to avoid this dilemma and continually insisted that none of his observations and
conclusions should be taken as unalterable truth but merely as a reflection of his own
experience and subject to revision or discarded as needed.
As we have already seen, Chaikins work reflects his belief in the existence of the
social frameworks of memory and the influence they have upon the actor. In order to
understand how the frameworks of memory function, the actor must be consciously
aware of them. This is the second core principle of Chaikins technique: the actor must
cultivate an awareness of how the frameworks of memory exert an implicit and
pervasive influence on his attitudes and values. An actors tool is himself, writes
Chaikin, but his use of himself is informed by all the things which inform his mind
and body his observations, his struggles, his nightmares, his prison, his patterns,
himself as a citizen of his times and his society (Presence 5.) Unlike Halbwachs, who
attaches neither positive nor negative qualities to collective memory, Chaikin definitely
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sees the influence of collective memory as a negative one on the actor. Its within the
structure of the human character to want, writes Chaikin, Its the governments and
societys malfunction to determine what it is we are to want (Presence 14). One of the
ways Chaikins technique seeks to overcome the setup is by interrogating it. Despite his
aversion to set principles Chaikin often used a process he called jamming to explore how
the setup uses what he calls emblems as a means of indoctrinating the individual with
desires and expectations about life experiences, that are of greatest interest and
important to society (Halbwachs 136). As we shall see, actors choose a particular
emblem and use the process of jamming on that emblems meanings in order to explore
how the setup has conditioned their responses in a particular way to a particular
emblem. This exploration involves both the actors explicit and implicit memory
systems.
For Chaikin the theatre is, above all else, a place for convergence. Theatre is a
place where the attitudes and values of the dominant social frameworks can meet, be
investigated, questioned and challenged. In the opening lines of The Presence of the Actor
Chaikin plainly states that:
There is the situation being played out on the stage (the play), and there is
the situation of actually being in the theater the relationship between the actors
and the audience. It is this living situation that is unique to the theater, and the
impulses of a new and more open theater want to manifest it. (1)
The exploration and utilization of the actor/audience relationship is the third of
Chaikins core principles. A company of actors, says Chaikin, in relation to the work
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that they are performing is a community (Presence 28). And as Blumenthals study of
Chaikin illustrates, creating a sense of community with the spectators is important to
Chaikin and is one of the major goals of his technique (Blumenthal 60). As Halbwachs
tells us, any community, regardless of its size or make-up, is a social framework that
affects its members and is affected by the influences of collective memory. In this sense
each performance of a play could be seen as being its own social framework, albeit it
one with a limited, predetermined lifespan. Drawing from his own experience as an
actor Chaikin came to believe that the actors expectations and preconceptions about the
people who make up the audience influence the actors performance either consciously,
unconsciously or both in some combination of the two. As before, Chaikin perceives
this influence of collective memory as being largely a negative one, but one, however,
which can be made to serve better ends. Because what we expect in the audience is the
same as what participation we invite from them Chaikin experimented with what he
came to call the actors presence and levels of address (Presence 143). Chaikins
emphasis on an explicit relationship between his actors and audience is one of the
major distinctions between his technique and the others weve examined thus far as
well as illustrating Chaikins innate understanding of the ways in which collective
memory can, and does, affect the individuals attitudes and behavior toward others.
A more detailed analysis of the core principles of Chaikins technique presents a
challenge for scholarly study when one remembers that Chaikins first core principle
was to avoid establishing any kind of fixed principles. Despite Chaikins prodigious
body of work, he left behind very little in the form of coherent, composed writings.
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Eileen Blumenthal correctly notes that in this respect Chaikin is atypical among other
avant-garde artists in the theatre. Aside from The Presence of the Actor, Chaikin never
published any kind of textbook or summation of his theories. Anyone who has read
Presence can attest to the fact that it is not as much a coherent explanation of his theories
as it is, notes, then, from several levels of myself (Presence xi). One contributing
reason for the lack of a Chaikin canon, so to speak, is that Chaikins ideas on theatre
were forever changing. In fact, writes Blumenthal, notions [Chaikin] has worked
with over the years flatly contradict each other, and even ideas he is exploring at one
time may be incompatible (Blumenthal 38). My own investigation of Chaikin will
focus primarily on his work during the Open Theater years. It was Chaikins work with
the Open Theater that first brought him to the attention of the theatre world and it was
also his work during this period that laid the foundations for his future work. It is also
where one can most clearly see the correlations between Chaikins technique and
Halbwachss theory of collective memory.
One of the reasons Chaikin resisted systemization of his ideas is because he felt
that, The conventional actors inquiry tends to yield whatever it was designed to
discover. Little remains to be discovered either about another person or about oneself
(Presence 19). The various training techniques used by Chaikin and the Open Theatre
were designed to help the actor to investigate the setup and how it affects the actors
personal and professional attitudes. Some of the exercises developed by Chaikin and
the Open Theater became part of their regular repertoire, although it was always
important to Chaikin that, The exercises, discussions, and relationships within the
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group and toward the material must be newly assessed at the beginning of each new
adventure of work (Presence 134). Such a process-oriented technique is not surprising
when we consider Chaikins belief that an acting teachers proper role is that of a
facilitator. Acting teachers who demand a slavish devotion to a rigorous set of pre-
established standards limit the possibilities of discovery for their actors. Teachers like
these, according to Chaikin, have, already fixed what is true beforehand. The student
hasnt. Eventually the student only learns what is true for the teacher (Presence 154-
55). Acting, for Chaikin, is a process about personal discovery and finding the means to
share that discovery with others, not conforming to the truth of another.
Chaikins actor training technique helps actors to come up against their own
forms of institutionalized thinking, and the culturally dictated forces, even those fully
adapted by the professional theatre (Presense 15). Chaikins rejection of realism in his
work is one of the ways in which he sought to overcome the influences the dominant
social frameworks exert over the actor. In a 1969 interview published in Drama Review
Chaikin says that, one of my reasons for rejecting [realism] is because it corresponds to
social order, certain kinds of emphasis, and certain kinds of repression (Chaikin
Fragments 145-7). In Presence he states that When theater is limited to the socially
possible, it is confined by the same forces which limit society (23). Both these instances
illustrate Chaikins desire to enable actors to move beyond the constraints imposed
upon them by the dominant social frameworks. To this end Chaikin sought to create
exercises that would enable actors to recognize how their attitudes and values have
been implicitly influenced by the social frameworks of memory.
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One of the ways Chaikins technique utilizes the actors collective memory is
through the study of emblems. An emblem can be an object, or the image of an object,
symbolizing and suggesting another object or an idea. The crown is emblematic of the
king. The bars are emblematic of the prison, writes Chaikin (Presence 113). Emblems
can be one of the material traces that Halbwachs says that the present frameworks
use to reconstruct an image of the past that is in line with the values of the present
framework (119). As such an emblem carries within it a recommendation to be seen
within a given system of perception (Presence 128). Chaikins use of emblems also
reveals, as was the case with Adlers principle of self-enlargement, that there is in short
no object upon which we reflect that cannot serve as a point of departure, through an
association of ideas to reveal the influences of collective memory upon the individual
(Halbwachs 61). Emblems need not be physical symbols such as a crown or prison bars,
but can also encompass, [. . .] a gesture, a sound, a word, or a series of any of these
(Presence 113).
As we have seen, how one remembers and even what one remembers, is
significantly influenced through exposure to training or practices by socialization
agents [. . .] (Nelson & Fivush 283). These socializing agents come in many forms. In
Time Maps historian Eviator Zerubavel identifies three categories of mnemonic
socialization: formal institutions, informal co-reminiscing and those of a more subtle
and indirect nature (5.) Mnemonic socialization results in what Zerubavel calls
habitual mental stances (5).
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We normally acquire such habitual mental stances as part of the process of
learning to remember in a socially appropriate manner. Far from being a strictly
spontaneous act, remembering is also governed by unmistakably social norms of
remembrance that tell us what we should remember and what we should
essentially forget (emphasis in Zerubavel 5).
An emblem is then, more than a symbol which encapsulates meaning, it is also a
model of what kinds of things we should remember and what things we should forget.
And more than this, from Chaikins point of view emblems are the setups way of
conditioning not only what an individual wants, but also their expectations of what the
individuals experience of life should be like. The most successful aspect of
persuasion, Chaikin writes, is that people are made to aspire to things they dont even
want. How do you get to want these things? (Presence 74). Emblems are the means by
which the setup conditions the individuals wants and expectations.
Our memory of an emblem can be episodic, semantic or a mixture of both, but
more often than not this type of memory utilizes the semantic memory system.
Semantic memory refers to a persons general knowledge about the world (Schacter &
Tulving 2001). A persons general knowledge about the world not only includes the
factual knowledge we normally associate with semantic memory, but it also
encompasses a wide range of organized information, including facts, concepts, and
vocabulary (Schacter & Tulving 632). Here one can see how the setups conditioning,
via the production and recommendation of particular emblems, or concepts, for love,
happiness and success, implicitly influence the actor due to the effects of collective
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memory. If a given social framework is to perpetuate itself, it must ensure that its
values are important to the individuals who make up that framework by
foregrounding, those activities that are of greatest interest and importance to it
(Halbwachs 136). One of the ways in which these activities can be foregrounded is by
turning them into emblems. By presenting emblematic examples of the values it
endorses, the setup instills in the individual a certain way of thinking and certain types
of behavior that reinforce the attitudes and values of the dominant frameworks of
memory.
In his article Nonconscious Forms of Human Memory Jeffery Toth examines
the ways in which [. . .] a persons thought and behavior could be influenced by prior
events of which that person was not aware [. . .] (Toth 245). The results of Toths
examination support the general hypothesis of collective memory Halbwachs put forth
nearly a century before, namely that the frameworks of memory implicitly influence the
individual. Results from various studies of the effects of implicit memory lead Toth to
conclude, [. . .] that subjects need not even be aware that a prior event occurred for the
event to influence their subsequent performance (249-50). Although memographers
disagree on the specifics, Toth goes on to conclude that, irrespective of these debates,
most researchers agree that nonconscious processes play a powerful role in conscious
memory judgments (Toth 254). And even though the majority of the work thus far
done on the implicit memory systems influence on conscious memory has been based
on the processing of rather simple stimuli [. . .] Already strong links have been drawn
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between nonconscious processes in memory and socially relevant phenomena such as
impression formation, stereotyping and prejudice (Toth 256).
Chaikins understanding of the influence of implicit memory on conscious
behavior anticipates the conclusions of contemporary memory researchers by nearly
twenty years. Chaikin uses the example of two people telling one another I love you
for the first time to illustrate how emblems affect the individual. These two people are
standing together, holding hands with Shelly Winters and Gary Cooper right between
them, and the experience they are having doesnt resemble the thing that happened
when Shelley Winters said it to Gary Cooper at all (Presence 73). What it means to say I
love you and what we expect that experience to be like has, already [been] predisposed
within a framework of outlines, of typical shapes of experienced objects (Connerton 6).
In some instances this influence will manifest itself in the form of conscious, episodic
memory like Chaikins example with Winters and Cooper. In most cases, however,
the influence is implicit, subtly shaping our expectations of our own experiences of the
setups emblematic moments. The power of implicit memory to shape our conscious
expectations is so great that In addition to influencing a persons interpretations of
events in the present, [implicit memory] has been shown to influence interpretation of
the past (i.e. conscious memory judgments) (Toth 254). Once again contemporary
research corroborates Halbwachss hypothesis that collective memory reconstructs an
image of the past, which idealizes those values and patterns of behavior that support
and contribute to the continuance of the dominant social frameworks of the present.
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As we saw in the case of Adler even our episodic memories are rewritten to conform to
expectations put forth by the setups emblems (Toth 254).
In Chaikins example cited above, all the popular images of love and romance an
individual has encountered, from fairy tales to film, serve as emblems of the setups
recommended attitude toward love. Hence the difficulty of extracting our past from
our present, writes Connerton:
Not simply because present factors tend to influence some might want
to say distort our recollections of the past, but also because past factors tend to
influence, or distort, our experience of the present. This process, it should be
stressed, reaches into the most minute and everyday details of our lives.
(Connerton 2)
When our experience does not measure up to what weve been conditioned to
expect, a person experiences the hollowness of the words there seems to be an
absence and in fact, as he says, I love you, he sneakily feels he lies (Presence 72-73).
The feeling of disconnect between what we believe an experience should be like and
what actually takes place is one of the ways, according to Chaikin, in which the setup
exerts its control over the individual. In order to make our experience of life more like
the emblems provided by the dominant frameworks on which we model our behavior
and set our expectations to match those provided by setups emblems. This is an
example of what Eviator Zerubavel calls iconic connectedness. Zerubavel defines iconic
connectedness as our present attempts to reproduce the past in actions and behavior
(45). In this way the dominant frameworks of memory utilize the individuals implicit
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memory to manipulate the individuals expectations and behaviors to conform to those
endorsed by the dominant frameworks of memory.
The interrogation of emblems in Chaikins technique is important because they
function as repositories of collective memory they are artifacts, models of setup-
sanctioned behavior. The process by which the actors investigate and interrogate the
meanings emblems hold is what Chaikin calls jamming. Jamming is the study of an
emblem. [. . .] the jamming becomes a kind of contemplation of that emblem (Presence
116). Jamming on an emblem provides a chance for actors to confront, their own forms
of institutionalized thinking, and the culturally dictated forces [. . .] (Presence 15).
Initially during the process of jamming there is, a tendency against discovery and
toward confirming the clich (Presence 130). Clichs attain the status of being clich
because they are habitual responses to situations; responses recommended and
endorsed by a societys dominant frameworks. Indeed, writes Connerton, it is
precisely because what is performed is something to which the performers are
habituated that the cognitive content of what the group remembers in common
exercises such persuasive and persistent force (88). In other words clichs are an
example of what Connerton calls, a socially legitimate [. . .] performance (35). For
Chaikin the danger of the clich is twofold. By playing the clich the actor fails to get
beyond the prepackaged meaning of an emblem and ends up perpetuating the values
and attitudes endorsed by the setup. But on the other hand, if the actor, censors [the
clich] he may always stay behind it. If he plays the clich out, its more possible that
he will go beyond it (The Context of Performance 667). In this way jamming is akin
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to jazz improvisation on a theme or the process of free association sometimes employed
by psychoanalysts.
Jamming on emblems is a vital part of Chaikins technique because, [Emblems]
serve an extremely important function and sustain all kinds of misperceptions, all of
which help keep things going as they are (Presence 73). In mnemonic terms jamming on
emblems promotes an actors ability to consciously investigate the implicit influences of
collective memory. Even when a person is aware of it, the setups influence on his
expectations is virtually impossible to escape. It is frustrating, says Chaikin, because
[we] cant really do it, and [we] cant keep from trying to do it (Presence 73). The
process of jamming on emblems raises the actors awareness of the ways in which their
attitudes and values have been surreptitiously conditioned by the setup. Actors who
are aware of the setups influence, according to Chaikin, are a danger to the setup
because they, [. . .] see that there are really other goals and other places to inhabit
beyond the setups recommendations. (Presence 75).
Thus far we have seen how Chaikins technique uses the actors semantic
memory as a means of revealing to the actor the ways in which the social frameworks of
memory influence the actors attitudes, values and beliefs. Now we come to the final
core principle of Chaikins technique: the presence of the actor. In the following pages
the connections between presence of the actor and the memory of the actor may not be
readily apparent. I ask my readers to bear with if I seem to digress from my subject. I
do so only because the following information is necessary in order to understand how
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Chaikins technique uses the concept of presence to subvert and/or challenge the
frameworks of memory.
Chaikin is frustratingly obscure in his definition of presence. He says, Its a
quality that makes you feel as though youre standing right next to the actor, no matter
where youre sitting in the theater (Presence 20). In this way what Chaikin calls
presence and what is more commonly called stage presence are one and the same thing.
Although vague in his definition, Chaikin is adamant regarding the importance he
accords presence. Thats what the theater is, Chaikin writes in The Presence of the
Actor, Its this demonstration of presence on some human theme or other and in some
form or other (qtd. in Toscun 38). Presence also consists of what Blumenthal calls, the
instant-to-instant awareness of shared moments between the actors and audience (51).
One of the ways Chaikins technique accomplishes this is by abandoning the pretense
that the actor isnt himself, but a different person on stage. When we as actors are
performing, we as persons are also present and the performance is a testimony of
ourselves (Presence 6). In order to highlight and reinforce to audiences the dual
identity of actor/character Chaikin, [. . .] prefers, wherever possible, to let the audience
see the actor move from being people like themselves into inhabiting the characters
(Blumenthal 61).

Presence also involves a new way of seeing for the actor as well. Chaikin
believes that:
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Every performer makes some decision about the audience in his own
mind; personalizing, making specific the anonymous. He makes a secret choice,
in the course of events, as to who the audience is. In attributing a particular
quality to the audience, one invites the participation of that quality. (Presence
140)
Chaikin uses what he calls dedication as a way of intentionally guiding
what he see as a natural process. The actor dedicates a performance by calling
on something in another which is also alive in yourself (Presence 141). Actors
can dedicate to a specific person, , or an object/emblem, or even an abstract
concept such as all those who killed themselves [. . .] all landlords who trick
their tenants [. . .] any metaphor than can be a visceral reality [for the actor] so
long as the dedication evokes a personal connection between the actor and the
audience (Presence 142).
In Chaikins technique dedication serves the same purpose as emotional episodic
memories do in Strasbergs technique. In other words, it is a means for actors to
jumpstart their inspiration. The crucial distinction between Strasbergs technique and
Chaikins lies in what types of memories they employ. As we saw in the previous
chapter, techniques like Strasbergs make use of the emotional, episodic memories of
the actor. Dedication employs the actors episodic memory but it also makes use of the
actors implicit collective memory. What is involved [in a dedication] is my own
relationship [to it] (Presence 142). Chaikin demonstrates an intuitive understanding of
Halbwachss theory of collective memory here. In essence Chaikin recognizes that our
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expectations of who and what a person is are shaped, in part, by the attitudes toward
that particular person which we have internalized via the frameworks of memory that
we participate in. Chaikin goes a step beyond Halbwachs by turning the setups own
conditioning against itself. The audience tends to become stereotyped in the mind of
an actor, writes Chaikin, and what the dedication does is to invite a particular
presence from the audience, and unfix that stereotype (Presence 144). Dedication
undermines the us and them mentality that is one of the uglier consequences of
collective memory. Instead of seeing a faceless group of spectators, through dedication
the actor can instill in the audience a particular part of yourself that you want to share
with the audience (qtd. in Blumenthal 77). By doing so the actor undercuts the
stereotypes that the setup uses to alienate us from one another. In this way the
dedication of an audience can be seen as the creation of an entirely new social
framework. This new framework may last for only the performance but for that time
the actors are not meeting the audience on the level of fictitious characters, but rather as
human beings.
When we actors are performing, we are also present as person and
the performance is a testimony of ourselves. So each role, each work, each
performance changes us as persons [. . .] In former times, acting simply
meant putting on a disguise. But now, its clear that the wearing of the
disguise changes the person. As he takes off the disguise, his face changes
from having worn it.
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The combination of the presence of the actor and the dedication of the audience
is one of the ways in which Chaikins technique seeks to throw down the walls of the
categories that we have come to use to define ourselves thanks to the implicit and
persistent influence of the collective memory of our society.
Perhaps the greatest advantage to Chaikins technique is its universality. The
non-dogmatic nature of Chaikins theories makes his technique readily applicable to a
wide variety of theatrical styles. Chaikins technique does not embrace any particular
style of acting as much as it provides a way for the actor to investigate her own
personal relationship to the material. Chaikins technique can be used in traditional
script-based productions, like Chaikins own performance as Vanya in Chekhovs Uncle
Vanya (La Mama Annex, New York 1983) or Hamm in Becketts Endgame (Cite
Universitaire, Paris 1969). Of course most people familiar with Chaikins technique
recognize its applicability to the creation of original emblem-based work like The
Serpent (1968) and his collaborations with Sam Shepard such as Tongues (1978).
In large part the range of Chaikins technique is due to the open-ended attitude
he takes toward the theatre. Another contributing factor, and another major advantage
of Chaikins technique, is that of all the actor training techniques thus far examined,
Chaikins is, by far, the most actor-centric. Most of the exercises Chaikin talks about in
Presence and in his various other papers are not solely of his design. Chaikin talks about
how he doesnt come up with acting exercises with a specific goal in mind, but instead
allows them to develop organically from the interests of the acting company as a whole.
The exercises provide an agreed upon structure for exploration but do not in and of
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themselves have any kind of meaningful, inherent content. Their value lies instead in
each actors individual response to the exercise. Strasberg asks the actor to use his own
memories the emotional life of the character and Adler, as we have seen, advances a
highly sociological way of thinking about character. Despite their differences, one
commonality shared between Strasberg and Adler is that their training techniques are
derived from a philosophical viewpoint that embraces theory first, practice second. In a
reversal of this process, Chaikins training techniques emerge from the practice first.
Such a process-oriented technique is not surprising when we consider Chaikins belief
that an acting teachers proper role is that of a facilitator. A teacher, in Chaikins
estimation, looks for the right steps for each student, and when the student is about to
make his discovery, the teacher must disappear (Presence 154). Those acting
techniques that adhere to a rigorous set of standards limit the possibilities of discovery
for their actors. Acting, for Chaikin, is a messy process about personal discovery,
finding the means to share that discovery with others and not capitulating to the truth
of another.
Chaikins technique is not for the beginning actor; it assumes that the actor
comes to the training with an already established acting skill set. While it may seem
reasonable to assume that Chaikin wouldnt want actors who were already
indoctrinated, so to speak, with the mainstream acting techniques, this is not the case.
Chaikin welcomed, and even encouraged actors to train in a variety of styles. But from
the perspective of a professional actor and teacher of acting, there is nothing in
Chaikins technique that could be considered fundamental at all. Its an advanced way
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of thinking about acting, a technique capable of enhancing the actors basic skills but
not one that will teach the actor those basic skills. What Chaikins technique does is
increase the actors awareness of the ways in which collective memory influences the
individuals attitudes and values, and it helps the actor to form a more personal
relationship with the material and the audience. It does not teach the actor how to
identify objectives or through-lines of action. Instead it enables the actor to go beyond
the standard classroom exercises to encounter the material and its performance on a
more immediate and personal level.
Like any actor training technique that draws upon the personal life of the actor,
Chaikins technique runs the risk of touching upon personal aspects that the actor either
cannot, or is not prepared to confront. Although this risk is considerably less than with
those techniques which rely solely on the episodic memory system of the actor, it is still
a risk nonetheless. In addition to the emotional risk some actors may have to deal with,
is the time investment demanded by Chaikins technique. The fact that his technique is
so oriented on process, and not product, makes Chaikins technique less suited for
commercial theatrical work and more conducive to a laboratory-like atmosphere.
The techniques of Adler and Chaikin share a number of similarities. Both
techniques are predicated upon a use of the actors collective memory that is both
implicit and explicit. Both use the actors collective memory in a way that corresponds
with Halbwachss own ideas on the subject. Adler and Chaikin also were ahead of the
curve, mnemonically speaking, in embracing Halbwachss sociological conception of
memory well before it had gained popular acceptance among memographers. And both
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recognize how the actors participation in the collective frameworks of memory
influences not only the actor as a person, but also the actors performance. Yet for all
their similarities, when we examine how these techniques themselves interact with
collective memory we see they are very different.
Chaikins technique is predicated upon interrogating and deconstructing the
influences of the social frameworks of memory. Our modern societies impose many
constraints on people (Halbwachs 49). The goal of Chaikins technique is to reveal
the ways in which the actor is constrained by his collective memory. Actors cannot
hope to ever free themselves from the influence of the setup. But by developing an
awareness of the ways in which he has been constrained and conditioned by the social
frameworks of memory, the actor can reevaluate and better understand his
suppositions about himself, a character, and the audience. Awareness in this case can
lead the actor into a conscious change in thought or behavior, in both his personal and
his professional life, as he discovers those, parts of [himself] imprisoned in the disguise
of the setup (Presence 130).
Collective memory does not just constrain the individual; it also provides
supports for the individuals memories within a larger memorial context. Adlers
technique takes advantage of this supportive property of collective memory. When an
actor practices characterization by type she is performing collective memory. The type
is recognizable to the audience precisely because the actors performance of it is in
accord with the dominant social frameworks conception of that type.. When employed
in this manner collective memory supports not only the actors characterization, but
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also the audiences reception of it. In this way the collective memory works for the
actor. Characterization according to type reinforces and transmits an embodiment of
type, which is in accord with the attitudes and judgments of the dominant social
frameworks of memory, thus supporting and reinforcing via the actors performance
the social status quo. In the final analysis, Adlers use of the actors collective memory is
quite conservative, when contrasted to Chaikins subversive approach.

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5.0 MEMORY IN THE BODY: PROCEDURAL MEMORY, STEPHAN WANGH
AND VIEWPOINTS
There is more wisdom in your body than in your deepest philosophy.
-Friedrich Neitzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra

I have been a video gamer ever since I first turned on my Atari 2600 almost thirty years
ago. Back then it was blast the asteroids or avoid the ghosts, as you munch as many
pellets as possible. Today the level of complexity involved in some games is staggering.
The controller for my Atari was a simple joystick with a red button in the top left
corner. My PlayStation 3 controller has two joysticks and twelve buttons. As if that
werent complicated enough, many contemporary games utilize combos actions
that can only be accomplished by activating a combination of buttons and/or stick
movements. In short, playing video games today involves a level of physical
coordination on the part of your hands that would put a world-class video gamer (yes,
there are competitions for video game playing) on par with a concert pianist in terms of
digital dexterity.
One might ask what my video game hobby has to do with memory and the
actors training. Thus far we have examined how the episodic and collective memories
of the actor serve as creative stimuli. In this final chapter we will turn our attention to
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the form of memory known as body memory. Philosopher Edward Casey defines body
memory as memory that is intrinsic to the body, to its own ways of remembering: how
we remember in and by and through the body (Remembering 147). Prior to sitting
down to write this chapter, I decided to perform a little experiment on myself involving
video games and body memory. Having just finished a season of hockey and noting the
impending arrival of summer, I decided to devote some time to playing a baseball video
game. Not having played my baseball game for almost a whole year, I certainly would
have benefited from re-reading the controller instructions in the manual, and ordinarily
I would have done so. For most sports-themed games, the bulk of the manual contains
instructions for using the controller, once again highlighting the increasingly
complicated nature of todays video games. For the purposes of my experiment, I chose
not to re-read the controller instructions, but rather to trust in my bodys memory of
how to play the baseball game. The results were mixed. I had no difficulty recalling
how to make a player swing the bat or pitch the ball; two of the simplest actions in the
game. Throwing the ball to a particular base also presented little challenge. When it
came to more complicated actions, such as stealing a base, I found myself hopelessly
lost. In particular I had a great deal of difficulty with switching the player I controlled.
In the baseball game one switches the player being controlled by pushing the X button.
In this instance, I kept pushing the R2 (right, bottom) button--which would have
worked perfectly if I were still playing hockey. Even after I understood that I should
push the X button, I kept finding myself pushing the R2 button whenever I wanted to
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switch players. Eventually, after playing several games in a row, I managed get my
hands to remember that X was the button to push in order to switch players.
It may seem odd to say I had to get my hands to remember, but that is precisely
what my example of playing video games is intended to illustrate. Of the forms of
memory we have thus far examined, none is so pervasive, so often overlooked, or so
greatly missed when lost as body memory. It is important to make the distinction here
between body memory and memory of the body. When we have a memory of the body
we are remembering our body in the physical context of a particular past experience,
what Casey calls the self-presence of the rememberer, as a component of the overall
mnemonic presentation (Remembering 69). As we saw in chapter two, the perspective in
which one remembers bodily presence can be, and often is, conscious, as with
Freudsfield /observer perspective. But this kind of memory of the body is not the
same thing as body memory. The difference is manifest, writes Casey, in the
noticeable discrepancy between recollecting our body as in a given situation [. . .] and
being in the situation itself again and feeling it through our body (emphasis in original
Remembering 147). My video game example illustrates remembering, or in my case
struggling to remember, through the body. What makes this an example of body
memory and not memory of the body is the fact that my bodily actions were a key
component in remembering how to play the baseball game. I did not need to re-learn
how to play the baseball game, I simply played the game and, with the exception of
switching players, I had little trouble remembering the various physical gestures I
needed to execute in order to be successful in the game. I could have committed the
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instruction manual to memory, thus assuring that I would have knowledge of how the
controls functioned in gameplay, but such knowledge takes time perhaps better spent in
the lived experience of acquiring body memory. One can see this in how I had
difficulty adjusting from one set of body memories to another. For the better part of the
previous year I had been playing my hockey game and had become habituated to a
certain set of bodily movements. When I discovered my continual error when trying to
switch players, I went back to the manual to refresh my cognitive memory about what
the correct button for switching players was. Consciously I knew that I would have to
push X in order to execute the switching of players. But when I was in the midst of
playing the game, being in the situation itself again (emphasis in original Remembering
147) my hands kept choosing the R2 button seemingly of their own accord. I had
become so accustomed to a particular set of controls that the established body memories
kept asserting themselves regardless of my intentions.
The lag in time between learning something and that knowledge being
transformed into body memory is indicative of the unique nature of body memory.
Body memory belongs to the procedural memory system. Procedural memory refers
to the learning of motor and cognitive skills, and is manifest across a wide range of
situations which [. . .] enable the acquisition of new skills (Schacter, Wagner &
Buckner 636). This particular memory system is very different from the other systems
of memory we have encountered thus far. At this juncture an adjustment to the way in
which we have been conceptualizing memory must be made, namely from a perception
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of memory as a neurological or psychological process hidden from our view to a
perception of memory as a behavioral phenomenon on display for all to see.
In his article Concepts of Memory Endel Tulving asks the question whether or
not a form of memory whose operations are expressed purely in behavior, in the
absence of corresponding (conscious) thought, can be regarded as the same kind of
memory whose operations are expressed in pure thought, in the absence of any
necessity to convert the thought into behavior (Tulving 37). The answer, as Tulving
and many others have concluded, is no. Tulving cites how encoding and retrieval
studies have become regular tools in the study of cognitive forms of memory (i.e.
episodic and semantic memory systems). But such emphasis on the encoding and
retrieval processes does little to reveal the ways in which the pre-reflective nature of
body memory works. It is awkward at best and silly at worst (Tulving 38) to apply
the research methodology useful for investigating a cognitive form of memory to a form
of memory that is evidently pre-reflective.
Other research which points to the distinctions between procedural and
declarative forms of memory includes John Hodgess Memory in Dementias, Andrew
Mayess Selective Memory Disorders, and Hans Markowitschs Neuroanatomy of
Memory. These studies approach the question via a neurological and/or
psychological point of view. Neuroimaging techniques, like PETs cited by Schacter,
Wagner and Buckner in their article Memory Systems of 1999 corroborate the
distinctions neurological/psychological research has made between procedural and
declarative forms of memory. From the evidence under examination, Schacter et al.
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conclude that Procedural memory is characterized by gradual, incremental learning
and can function normally in the presence of damage to medial temporal lobe
structures, thereby distinguishing it from episodic and semantic memory systems
(636). Neuroimaging studies also reveal that extensive practice on a task often
produces a shift in the brain pathways used to complete the task (Schacter, Wagner &
Buckner 636). The presence of this memory migration has been observed in a variety of
experiments that test the tasks believed to be under the control of the procedural
memory system. The continued presence of this shift from nave performance
pathways to overlearned performance pathways lead Schacter, Wagner and Buckner
to conclude that, This basic observation [. . .] appears to be quite general in studies of
procedural memory (Schacter, Wagner & Buckner 637).
This idea, that the formation of memory physically alters the structure of the
brain is not a new one. It dates back to Descartes theory of animal spirits and the
formation of memories (Sutton chapter 3). The shifting of brain pathways reflects the
way in which body memories are acquired. When one first learns to ride a bicycle the
process is shaky in its initial stages. One must manage three physical tasks at once:
balancing, steering, and pedaling, and each task requires constant minute adjustments.
The process seems hopelessly tangled at first, but with practice the herky-jerky motions
of the novice rider soon become smooth, almost imperceptible and second nature.
Such an evolution is behavioral evidence for the shift to more automated pathways
that practice brings about (Schacter, Wagner & Buckner 637). It is the automatic quality
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that practiced behaviors assume, which distinguishes body memories from those of the
episodic or semantic systems.
The automatic or second nature qualities of body memory means that it
occurs without conscious thought and/or intention. Further, If the body memory is
suitably active, one need not have recourse to other levels or kinds of experience
beyond that which one is presently engaged (Remembering 148). In order to ride a
bicycle, even if you havent ridden one in years, all one need to do is get onto a bicycle,
push off and pedal away. There is no need for one to recall previous times of bicycle
riding in order to remember how to ride. In fact trying too hard to consciously
influence a bodily action that has become a body memory usually results in the failure
of that action.. If I involve my conscious attention in the act of typing, for example, I lose
the effortlessness and nearly automatic quality that my non-reflective state of typing
has.
In body memory the past is embodied in actions. Rather than being contained
separately somewhere in the mind or brain, it is actively ingredient in the very bodily
movements that accomplish a particular action (Remembering 149). Caseys argument
for the embodied nature of body memory rests upon the notion of embodiment as
delineated by another philosopher and phenomenologist, Maurice Merleau-Ponty.
For my purposes Merleau-Ponty stands out among the philosophers of the
twentieth century because his Phenomenology of Perception elevates the body to a place of
prominence rarely seen in Western philosophical thought. Merleau-Pontys notion of
embodiment stems from his rejection of the objectivist bias toward thinking and
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knowledge that has plagued Western thinkers since Descartes first declared, cogito ergo
sum. In brief, Merlau-Ponty, like other phenomenologists, takes issue with the notion
that our experience and knowledge of the world can only be explained through
objective observation and the applications of the principles of causality. He does not
discount the existence, or even validity, of objective knowledge, but he does take issue
with the hubris he sees in the dogmatism of a science that thinks itself capable of
absolute and complete knowledge (Merleau-Ponty Phenomenology of Perception 45). An
objective paradigm proposes, and attempts to attain, a no-point of view: a point of view
that is completely neutral. The problem is, such a no-point of view does not exist. And
yet we are still capable of perceiving and ascribing meaning to our perceptions even
without recourse to an objectivist explanation of them. Subjectivity then, is the de facto
state of human existence as it is our main source of experience of the world.
Where Merleau-Ponty distinguishes himself from other major phenomenologists
like Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger (two major influences on Merleau-Ponty)
is by linking the individuals subjectivity with the body. Every human being has a
unique point of view because we each inhabit a unique body. Therefore all of our
perceptions of the world, of the other bodies around us, of ideas that come from those
bodies all of these are accessed through a very specific point of view that is defined by
our individual physical bodies. Human beings are embodied subjects, writes Eric
Matthews, a Merleau-Ponty scholar (emphasis in original Matthews 52). Merleau-
Pontys embodied subject raises entirely new questions with regard to the need for
consciousness in order to for a human being to operate on an intentional level. Husserl,
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and phenomenologists of his ilk have sought to connect intentionality with
consciousness. Merleau-Pontys embodied subject raises the distinct possibility that
intentionality need not arise from consciousness but could, in fact, be a function of
biology.
In their groundbreaking work, Metaphors We Live By, Lakoff and Johnson
demonstrate how our embodied experience of the world shapes the very ways in which
we think and the language we use. The premise of Lakoff and Johnsons book is that,
metaphor is pervasive in everyday life, not just in language, but in thought and action.
Our ordinary conceptual system, in terms of which we both think and act, is
fundamentally metaphorical in nature (Lakoff & Johnson 3). One of the major
categories of metaphor that Lakoff and Johnson examine is what they call orientational
metaphors. Orientational metaphors give a concept a spatial orientation; for example,
HAPPY IS UP. (emphasis in original Lakoff & Johnson 14). This is not, Lakoff and
Johnson argue, the result of some arbitrary coincidence but rather they, have a basis in
our physical and cultural experience (Lakoff & Johnson 14). One of the metaphors that
illustrates how our embodied experience of the world is reflected in our
conceptualization of certain ideas is the conscious is up; unconscious is down (Lakoff
& Johnson 15). When we wake up we are conscious, when we fall asleep we are
unconscious. One can reach a higher consciousness via meditation or lose all
consciousness by sinking into a coma. The metaphorical conception of conscious equals
up, unconscious equals down has a physical basis, according to Lakoff and Johnson, in
the fact that, Humans and most other mammals sleep lying down and stand up when
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they awaken (Lakoff & Johnson 15). This is but a very short example of the ways in
which the metaphorical concepts of Lakoff and Johnson illustrate how the experience of
being an embodied subject affects our perception of the world around us.
Congruent with the philosophy of Merleau-Ponty, our understanding of
metaphors comes naturally as a result of our experience as an embodied subject. We do
not need recourse to any objective account to explain these metaphors to us; our
subjective experience of them makes them already intelligible to us. Like body
memory, our experience of being an embodied subject is also pre-reflective. When
something happens with or to our bodies we immediately register the experience and
the effects it has had on our body. We do not need to observe, gather data, analyze and
or theorize about the experience in order for it to have meaning for us. If I touch a hot
stove I do not need to have any understanding of the laws of thermodynamics or the
ways in which the body receives processes and registers pain in order for the experience
to have meaning for me. The stove was hot, it hurt to touch it and so I will not touch a
hot stove again. All of the meaning I need to take away from my experience I already
have without having to look beyond my own subjective experience of the event. To be
sure, objective analysis of such an event contributes much to our knowledge of why
things get hot and why hot things hurt the human body, but such knowledge only
supplements the initial meaning of my experience.
Let us take a look at two examples that will provide evidence of the embodied
and pre-reflective nature of body memory in action. The first example comes from the
annals of neuroscience and deals with the peculiar case of memory loss and recovery in
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a patient known as GR. In 1992, while he slept, GR experienced a stroke, which affected
the left thalamus of his brain and left him suffering from retrograde amnesia (inability
to remember experiences prior to a trauma) and anterograde amnesia (inability to
remember experience following a trauma). About a year after suffering the stroke, GR
was diagnosed with an irregular heartbeat and GRs doctors decided to install a
pacemaker. What happened next is somewhat astonishing:
As he was lying quietly on the operating table, GR felt some discomfort as
the surgeon prepared his chest for the pacemaker. Then, in a stunning instant,
GR clearly remembered that he had experienced a virtually identical situation
some twenty-five years earlier when he had undergone an operation for a hernia.
[. . .] Soon his head was swimming in a roiling sea of memories, as his past life
came back to him in a torrent of images and thoughts. (Schacter, Searching 33)
While GRs condition improved greatly, his memory problems did not vanish
completely. Still, enough of his memory was recovered for GR to reclaim his sense of
self.
The case of GR is a medical oddity and to date no one has been able to provide a
completely satisfactory explanation for GRs sudden and substantial recovery. The
neurologists who reported GRs memory recovery, writes Schacter, called it the
petite madeleines phenomenon (Searching 33). This of course is a reference to Marcel
Prousts epic la recherche du temps perdu (In Search of Lost Time), wherein the
physical act of tasting a madeleine brings back a flood of forgotten childhood memories
for the narrator Marcel. Marcels experience with the petite madeleines is perhaps the
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most often cited by memographers, but it is not the only example of body memory in
Prousts epic work. In the following example the narrator Marcel talks about his
tendency from time to time to wake up in a state of confusion:
My body, still too heavy with sleep to move, would endeavor to construe
from the patter of its tiredness the position of its various limbs, in order to
deduce therefrom the direction of the wall, the location of the furniture, to piece
together and give a name to the house in which it lay. Its memory, the composite
memory of its ribs, its knees, its shoulder-blades, offered it a whole series of
rooms in which it had at one time or another slept [. . .] And even before my
brain, lingering in cogitation over when things had happened and what they had
looked like, had reassembled the circumstances sufficiently to identify the room,
it, my body, would recall from each room in succession the style of the bed, the
position of the doors, the angle at which the sunlight came in at the windows,
whether there was a passage outside, what I had had in mind when I went to
sleep and found there when I awoke (Proust 9).
What is most illuminating in this passage is Prousts recognition that his body
had, become a material condition of possibility for remembering (Proust 9). This
example clearly illustrates the pre-reflective and embodied qualities inherent in body
memory: the body deduce[s] from its memory which room the narrator is in even
before [the] brain, lingering in cogitation [. . .] had reassembled the circumstances
sufficiently to identify the room (Proust 9). As in the case of GRs stunning recovery,
body memory endures and even thrives where recollective forms of memory do not. Of
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particular interest is Prousts suggestion that his bodys memory is even capable of
reminding him of, what I had had in mind when I went to sleep (emphasis added
Proust 9).
Studies focusing on what has been called state-dependent retrieval suggest, as
Proust does, that the physical state of the body has an appreciable effect, as a
precondition, on the subjects ability for recollective recall. In his study of state-
dependent retrieval E. Eich noticed that people under the effects of alcohol or marijuana
during the initial encoding phase experience difficulty with recall testing when sober.
This in and of itself is not surprising. What was surprising, however, was that similar
doses of alcohol or marijuana, administered prior to the retrieval phase, dramatically
improved the test subjects ability to recall (Eich 1980). In his study Eich speaks of
mental states, but is not intoxication also a bodily state? Like Prousts body making
him aware of what he had in mind before he drifted off to sleep, the state-dependent
retrieval studies suggest that body memory can, and does, influence recollective forms
of memory once believed to be the sole purview of the mind or consciousness.
5.1.1 Marginality
Another unique characteristic of body memory is its marginal quality. Unlike the
episodic and semantic memory systems, bodily memory assumes for the most part a
marginal position vis--vis our most pressing concerns and is all the more effective for
doing so (Remembering 163). Take for example the swing of a baseball player, which
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involves so much more than simply swinging a bat at a ball. A batter must not only be
able to judge the speed and movement of the pitch but also must time his swing
perfectly to hit the ball. In addition the batter must also be mindful of the physical
mechanics of the swing, which involve a myriad of details like the positioning of ones
elbows, the location of ones hands on the bat, the twisting of the hips in the follow-
through. Add to these the additional physical adjustments to ones basic swing when a
batter attempts to pull or drive a pitch in a certain direction. Usually this is
accomplished by baseball players within seconds, even fractions of seconds. There is
simply too much happening at once for a batter to pay conscious attention to every
detail simultaneously. Hence the importance of working on ones swing over and over
again until the very unnatural act of swinging a baseball bat becomes as natural as
breathing. Such transformation can be seen as behavioral evidence for the process of
marginalization of body memory. As we saw earlier, one of the unique characteristics
of the procedural memory system is how the brain pathways governing the execution
of a nave skill change over time resulting in the formation of completely different
pathways, which are associated with a practiced performance. This change in the
neural makeup of the subject reflects, I suggest, an increase in the marginalization of a
particular body memory.
When discussing the subject of body memory, almost everything is marginal
(emphasis in original Casey 165). This not only excludes conscious awareness of the
physical motions involved in a certain body memory, but also the rememberers
perception of body memory itself. In short, when one utilizes body memory, one
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doesnt feel as if she was remembering, at least not in the sense weve come to associate
with the act of remembering. Riding a bicycle or swinging a baseball bat doesnt bring
to mind all the other times Ive ridden a bike or swung a bat. Body memory is rarely a
memory of the body, as an explicit focus memorius but rather a memory of how to do
something (Remembering 165). Instead of being transported back in time to a particular
moment that will not come again, body memory focuses on the present situation. The
memory of body memory isnt a memory of having done something in the past, but
rather the memory of how to re-perform a past activity in the present circumstances.
The marginality of body memory is precisely what allows us to direct our conscious
attention to the present circumstances while performing a remembered activity.
Conversely the marginality of body memory can contribute to the unintentional
alteration of a body memory. Sometimes batters fall into a slump due to psychological
factors, such as depression, domestic stress, etc. which can result in minute,
unconscious variations in the batters swing. In this instance the batters
autobiographic memory the memory of a fight with his wife or what was said about
him on the local sports show - can affect his body memory. The batter is unconscious of
the changes because of body memorys marginality. Very often it takes an external
observer like a batting coach who can notice the minute, unconscious variations to help
a batter reclaim his rhythm.
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5.1.2 Density and Depth
Casey contends that most body memories come to us as notably dense in felt quality
(Remembering 165). The density is manifest in the ways in which body memory defies
description. I can lecture you for months on the intricacies of the perfect baseball swing
but my words are simply not enough you are going to have to experience swinging
the bat before you get what Im talking about. As Casey notes, It is as if the density of
body memories, their rootedness in the heft, the thick palpability of the lived body,
rendered them mute (Remembering 165). Furthermore, the density of body memory
makes pinpointing the exact moment of acquisition of a certain body memory, for the
average person, virtually impossible to pinpoint. In this way body memory is akin to
semantic memory. In both instances we are utilizing memory in the present, even
though we may have no episodic recall of acquiring a particular skill (body memory) or
knowledge (semantic memory). I know how to ride a bicycle and I remember my
father teaching me to ride in the alley behind my childhood home. In particular I
remember losing my balance in the midst of an extremely large, and dirty, puddle of
water. These, however, are just episodes that come under the larger memorial heading
of learning to ride a bike. As to the acquisition of the skill of bike riding I have no
memory whatsoever of crossing the line between learning to ride a bike and being
able to ride a bike. Part of the reason for my inability to identify this moment may
have to do with the shifting of neural pathways that occurs during the formation of
procedural system memories.
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The particular density of body memory is a direct reflection of the bodys own
densely structured being (Remembering 166). As human beings we are made of layers
of organic matter: skin, muscles, viscera, and so forth. Since the body is dense it makes
sense that body memories also have a density to them. The density of the body even
hides the bodys own actions from our conscious attention as we saw in the case of the
marginality of body memories. When occupied with a physical task the body often
seems to withdraw from itself. Again let us take my typing these words as our
example. There is very little feeling on my part that I am typing these words at all.
They come to my mind and then appear on the screen. What is lost in this observation
is the crucial ingredient of my hands and fingers translating those thoughts into the
actions that will make the appropriate letters, and then words, appear on the screen.
This feeling of disconnection illustrates how even in the midst of an activity the body
becomes so deeply engaged in its various involvements as to be virtually self-
transcending and thus unknown to itself (Remembering 166). The self-opacity, to
borrow Caseys phrase, of a body in action is often taken for granted in our normal
experience of body memory but it comes to the foreground of our experience whenever
the body breaks down. Several months ago I sustained a minor break in the middle
finger of my left hand, which required a splint to heal. The seemingly effortless process
of typing suddenly became a crash course in understanding Lacans le corps
morcelle. My usually fluid typing became stilted and uncomfortable as I continually
had to adjust the positioning of my hands to compensate for the broken finger. No
longer did the words seem to write themselves. I became acutely aware of the process
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of typing in a way that I had previously been unaware of. Typing with a broken finger
forced me, to pay attention to the body in and by itself (Remembering 166) and thus
recognize how bodily dense is a relatively simple physical activity like typing.
Body memories are not indiscriminately dense; they are experienced as being
dense in their depth. Depth in this instance is not an indication of, the distance which
we infer we would have to travel to reach a predesignated point (Remembering 166).
Such a definition deals with depth in its external sense. The depth of body memory, on
the other hand, is a matter of internal depth. When a body memory is not needed it
vanishes into the depths of our own bodily existence, when needed it arises from these
same depths. This internal depth makes the remembering experienced in body memory
radically different from the remembered quality that accompanies non-body oriented
forms of remembering. Whenever one recalls an episodic or semantic memory one does
not connect with the depth of the scene being called back to mind (Remembering 167).
With perhaps the exception of true instances of affective memory, such remembering
removes us from re-experiencing the physical sensations of what we are remembering.
In recollection we experience our memories from an external point of view, namely one
removed from the original experience by time. As such, when we remember a birthday
celebration or our first day of college what we experience is a kind of self-voyeurism.
We stand apart from ourselves removed from who and what we were by the distance of
time. To further highlight the disconnected nature of recollection, as when compared to
body memory, the field/observer phenomenon allows one to switch the perspective by
which you see your own memory! No such voyeurism occurs in a body memory,
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which takes me directly into what is being remembered (emphasis in original
Remembering 167). Instead of existing as a quasi-pictorial image or fact, as is the case in
episodic and semantic memories respectively, remembering body memory necessarily
entails its own re-performance. In such remembering, concludes Casey, I leave the
heights of contemplative recollection and enter the profundity of my own bodily
being(Remembering 167). Thus the vertical density of body memories is tied up not
only with the physical density of the human body, but also the memorial density of the
human experience.
5.1.3 Co-immanence of the past and present
The relationship between the past and present in body memory is quite different from
the relationship of the past and present that characterizes recollective forms of memory
like those of the episodic and semantic systems. Such types of memory, peer
resolutely backward toward a past that is felt to have its own independent being;
hence the feelings of distance and separateness that accompany recollective memories
(Remembering 168). In our experience of them, recollective memories manifest
themselves in imagery or words, which only serve to heighten the sense that such
memories are remnants of a time gone by. Contrast this experience with that which
occurs with body memories. In this instance the past enters actively into the very
present in which our remembering is taking place (Remembering 168). In this case the
past does not take the form of images or word, but rather the form of physical actions.
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It is, then quite literally, the past reemerging into the world of the present. Moreover,
the past not only influences present bodily action, but it is, in turn influenced by the
present. In this body memory shows itself to be, like other forms of memory, a re-
construction of the past based, in part, on the rememberers present circumstances and
biases. Where body memory differs from the recollective forms of remembering we
have looked at thus far lies in the fact that the reciprocal influence of the past and
present physically manifests itself in the re-performance of behavior. It is in the act of
doing where body memory makes itself known to us. And it is in the act of doing that
body memory adapts itself to account for the physical differences that have arisen
between my past and present selves. Thus one can see that the co-immanence of the
past and present in the case of body memory accounts for difference in the very
context of sameness whereas recollective forms of memory seek to preserve sameness
in the context of difference (Remembering 168). Without the co-immanence of past and
present that occurs in body memory one would have incredible difficulty, if not
outright failure, if one were to try to ride a bicycle after not riding one for five years.
Thus far we have seen that body memory is: pre-reflective, embodied, works best
when it is marginalized, displays a density in depth and is a physical manifestation of
the co-immanence of the past and present. All these characteristics contribute to
making body memory vastly different from the recollective forms of memory that have
been utilized to train actors in the United States. One must, however, keep in mind that
these are just the general characteristics of body memory. In the following sections of
this chapter we shall see how body memory manifests itself in several different forms,
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each displaying a different degree of participation in the general features of body
memory. Casey outlines three different types of body memory: habitual or
performative memory, traumatic body memory and finally erotic body memory.
Although Caseys study of body memory is by no means exhaustive, these three basic
divisions of body memory provide us with a starting point for examining the ways in
which training techniques in the United States utilize the actors body memory.
5.2 STEPHEN WANGH
We do not possess memory, our entire body is memory, and it is by means of the
body-memory that the impulses are released.
-Jennifer Kumiega, The Theatre of Grotowski
The actor-training technique developed and taught by Stephen Wangh can best be
described by the subtitle of his book, An Acrobat of the Heart: A Physical Approach to
Acting Inspired by the Work of Jerzy Grotowski. Wangh was a student at NYU in 1967
when Grotowski offered an intensive workshop in his physical style of acting. In
Acrobat Wangh states that his experience with Grotowski helped him to understand and
deal with the issues Wangh was experiencing in his own acting. Specifically, Wangh
claims that he never felt fully present in his acting work, that despite his best efforts he
never felt as if he ever truly inhabited the character he played. His experience with
Grotowskis technique is what Wangh credits with opening his eyes to the
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interconnected nature of the actors body, memories and emotions. Starting with his
stint at Emerson College in 1976, Wangh began to develop and refine his own
formulation of Grotowskis actor training technique. Over the past thirty-six years
Wangh has continued to develop and refine his technique while working at Emerson
and other institutions such as NYUs Experimental Theatre Wing, The Actors Space, as
well as with the Tectonic Theatre Company. Presently Wangh is an instructor at Naropa
University where he continues to refine and teach his technique.
The aim of Wanghs technique is to teach the actor how to use his body and its
memory to, find [the] deep, connected, emotional logic an actor needs in order to play
a role convincingly (An Acrobat of the Heart 181). The basic premise of Wanghs training
is predicated on his belief that actors bodies [. . .] contain emotions, and that physical
forms even simple exercises like stretches or aerobics connect you with the thoughts
and feelings you need for your acting work (emphasis in original Acting with the
Wisdom of our Bodies 176). As we have already seen, acting techniques like
Strasbergs Method or Stanislavskys affective memory are predicated upon the belief
that emotions can be remembered. Wanghs technique is no different in this respect.
Wanghs technique, however, differs from those of his predecessors by virtue of the
type of memory it utilizes. Whereas Strasbergs and Stanislavskys techniques employ
the actors episodic memory system, Wanghs technique focuses instead on the actors
body memory, part of the procedural memory system. This is the first core principle of
Wanghs actor training technique: the actors body is a site of memory. Wanghs
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technique teaches the actor to utilize his body and its memories as a means of inspiring
the actors performance. Despite the major differences between the episodic and
procedural memory systems, Wangh doesnt see his technique as being all that different
from those which utilize mentalistic forms of memory. In the following passage from
Acrobat, Wangh explains this to one of his students who had, in fact, been trained in
Strasbergs technique prior to studying with Wangh:
You see, the work we will be doing is in many ways the same work you
call emotional memory and sense memory work. The difference is that we do not
do it relaxing in a chair. We do it with our bodies active because memories are
not encoded only in our brains; they are trapped in our muscles too. (emphasis
in original Acrobat 111)
Clearly Wangh believes that the mentalistic paradigm of memory does not
account for the totality of human memory. Furthermore, the passage above illustrates
Wanghs understanding that although it may touch upon similar memories, body
memory is a distinctly different type of memory from the more mentalistic forms of
episodic and collective memory. Of relevance to acting training, Caseys
phenomenology of body memory illustrates how our lived experience of body memory
feels different from our experience of episodic and semantic forms of memory.
Furthermore, the work of Lakoff and Johnson offers corroborating evidence for the
existence of body memory by revealing the ways in which our cognitive processes are
informed by our bodied existence.
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In Acrobat Wangh acknowledges that the James-Lange theory of emotion has
played a large role in the formulation of his technique. In the late 19
th
century
psychologist William James, building off the work of Danish physiologist Carl Lange,
hypothesized that what we call emotions anger, joy, fear and so forth occur not
because of changes in our cognitive state, but rather as a direct result of changes in our
physiological state that are produced by our bodies responses to external stimuli. In
Jamess own words:
Our natural way of thinking about [emotions] is that the mental
perception of some fact excites the mental affection called the emotion, and that
this latter state of mind gives rise to the bodily expression. My theory, on the
contrary, is that the bodily changes follow directly the perception of the exciting
fact, and that our feeling of the same changes as they occur IS the emotion.
Common-sense says, we lose our fortune, are sorry and weep; we meet a bear,
are frightened and run; we are insulted by a rival, are angry and strike. The
hypotheses here to be defended says that this order of sequence is incorrect [. . .]
and that the more rational statement is that we feel sorry because we cry, angry
because we strike, afraid because we tremble, and not that we cry, strike, or
tremble, because we are sorry, angry, or fearful, as the case may be. Without the
bodily state following on the perception, the latter would be purely cognitive in
form, pale, colorless destitute of emotional warmth. (emphasis in original James
449 450)
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This radical redefinition of emotion as the result of physiology instead of a
cognitive act has been met over the years with a great amount of skepticism. Even
James himself recognized that his theory had a paradoxical character about it and, [.
. .] is pretty sure to meet with immediate disbelief (James 450). The intervening years
made Jamess self-criticism seem prophetic.
For a long time the general consensus among psychologists and neuroscientists
was that the James-Lange theory was highly speculative and fundamentally flawed. But
this trend has reversed as psychologists and neuroscientists have devoted more study
to the phenomenon we call emotion. In particular neurologist and author Antonio
Damasio is quite vocal in his support of Jamess work. In his book The Feeling of What
Happens: Body and Emotion in the Making of Consciousness, Damasio contends that
Jamess proposal was attacked unfairly and dismissed summarily, which Damasio
sees as further evidence for the proof of the scientific neglect of emotion during the
twentieth century (Feeling 39). Perhaps the most compelling evidence to support the
basic hypothesis put forth by the James-Lange theory of emotion comes from our
current understanding of brain anatomy. The devices which produce emotions,
writes Damasio, occupy a fairly restricted ensemble of subcortical regions, beginning
at the level of the brain stem and moving up to the higher brain; the devices are a part
of a set of structures that both regulate and represent body states [. . .] (Feeling 51). So it
seems that the areas of the brain that are responsible for not only maintaining but also
communicating information about our bodys physiological state are closely connected,
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on a physical level, with those areas that deal with our emotions. Damasio argues that
the close proximity of these two areas of brain function is not merely an accident of
evolutionary design. Furthermore Damasio points out, and rightly so, that emotion, as
the word indicates, is about movement, about externalized behavior, about certain
orchestrations of reactions to a given cause, within a given environment ( Feeling 70).
From an actors perspective Damasios definition of emotion hits close to home. As
actors our job is not only to feel the emotions of our characters, but also to portray
those feelings in externalized behavior to an audience in a way that is clear and
believable. Even the language is similar: the scientists given cause and given
environment equal the actors given circumstances.
Wanghs technique, however, is not solely about training the actor to access and
utilize body memory. Body memories, like collective memory, can be and are
conditioned by the social frameworks of memory. In the previous chapter we focused
on collective memory as a mentalistic phenomenon, but this is not to say that the
influence of the social frameworks of memory have no effect on the body. The findings
of Nelson and Fivush support the supposition that procedural memory, like episodic
memory, is influenced by social forces. Specifically they mention what they call
childhood scripts such as bedtime and bath time routines - very bodily activities as
examples of socially learned strategies of procedural remembering (Nelson & Fivush
285). According to Paul Connerton one of the means by which collective memory is
preserved and transmitted from generation to generation is through the use of what he
calls incorporating bodily practices (emphasis added Connerton 72). Incorporating
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bodily practices are tangible evidence of, how memory is sedimented, or amassed, in
the body [. . .] (Connerton 72). Taking posture as his first example Connerton reveals
how differences in postural behavior can be read as markers of the dominant values of a
given society. In the United States, for example, there is a difference between the ways
men and women are taught to sit. Postural protocols that are observed in ceremonial
occasions, such as standing for the arrival of a judge or head of state, are remarkably
similar regardless of historical period or cultural context (Connerton 73). Such
behaviors are usually learned and transmitted unconsciously not unlike the form of
collective memory examined in the last chapter. Postural behavior, then, may be very
highly structured and completely predictable, even though it is neither verbalized not
consciously taught and may be so automatic that it is not even recognised as isolatable
pieces of behaviour ( Connerton 73). Incorporating bodily practices do more than
simply condition our physical behaviors. Drawing upon the work of Lakoff and
Johnson for corroboration Connerton discusses the way in which the incorporating
bodily practice of posture affects our mental lives as well:
When we speak of someone as being upright we may use the expression
descriptively and literally to mean that they are standing on their own feet, or we
may use it evaluatively and metaphorically to express admiration and praise of
someone [. . .] When we refer to someone who enjoys a high social position, we
say that they have status or standing. When we speak of misfortunes of all
kinds we express the change of circumstances as a fall; we fall into the enemys
hands, we fall upon hard times, we fall from favour. (Connerton 74)
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Such metaphors illustrate the subtle ways in which a society conditions, via
bodily practices, certain patterns of behavior, which in turn bleed over into our mental
conceptions and are reflected in the way we use metaphor. As such one may say that
they are an example of embodied, collective memories. These mnemonics of the body
as Connerton (74) calls them, are precisely the patterns of behavior that Wangh seeks to
identify and disrupt.
The primary way in which Wanghs technique seeks to undermine the influence
of incorporating bodily practices is through the use of a pedagogical method known as
via negativa. This is the second core principle of Wanghs technique. The term via
negativa originated as a means of describing what is known as Apophatic theology, a
type of theology that attempts to describe and/or prove the existence of god by
negation. Instead of trying to discern the nature of god by what it is, the via negativa
approach focuses on what god isnt in order to understand what god is. Those who
embrace a via negativa approach seek to strip away the extraneous in their search for the
essential. Now this is not to say that Wanghs approach to acting has anything to do
with humanitys quest to come closer to the divine.
Wangh is not the first to utilize a via negativa approach in actor training. Jerzy
Grotowski embraces a via negativa philosophy in not only his actor training, but also in
his overall vision of a poor theatre. It comes as no surprise that Wanghs technique,
being a derivative of Grotowskis, also utilizes a via negativa methodology. Wangh
believes that our emotional lives have been stunted by societys standards of
appropriate and inappropriate behavior. These standards, as we saw in the previous
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chapter, are themselves a type of memory. These standards of behavior condition our
physical expression of emotion. Thus the collective memory of a society becomes
embodied within the individual becoming as much a body memory as swinging a
baseball bat. The important difference to note is that swinging a bat is a consciously
acquired body memory while societal standards of expression are unconsciously
learned. Philosophically speaking, Wanghs technique is not much different from that
of Joseph Chaikin. Both men recognized society exerts a subtly pervasive influence
upon the actor. But whereas Chaikins technique focuses on the societys influence over
the collective, semantic memories of the actor, Wanghs focuses on the ways in which
society has conditioned the body memories of the actor.
In order to grasp more fully the concept of via negativa and its implications for
actor training, let us look to the example of the uninhibited physical expression of
emotion by young children. The emotional lives of young children are not a mystery;
they are on display for all to see. A child who has a purloined cookie taken away from
him becomes upset and angry. Instead of physically repressing emotion, as most adults
do, a young child freely expresses his emotions: his face gets red, his entire body begins
to quake as he wails. Perhaps he throws himself on the floor, screaming and kicking in
his attempts to get his cookie back. Conversely think of a child who wants to be held.
Arms outstretched he toddles over to you, reaching upward with his arms, possibly
even giving a little jump upwards, as my children did, to show you that he wants to be
held. There is nothing secret in the emotional lives of young children, not because they
are less developed or sophisticated than adults, but rather because young children live
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their emotional lives in and through their bodies for all to see. And while such behavior
in young children is endearing at its best, and exasperating at its worst, such emotional
expression is forbidden in adults.
As we grew from child to adult, somewhere along the way most of us learned
how to suppress our emotions (Acrobat xxxix). After a certain age we are discouraged
from engaging in such blatant and potent displays of emotion. We are told to act your
age and not cry like a baby when we dont get our own way. More than simply
repressing our emotions we also learned how to mask our own emotions with our
bodies. Anger or frustration is hidden beneath a smile; laughter hides nervousness,
embarrassment or even sadness. To clothe our emotional lives, writes Wangh, we
constricted our voices and armored our bodies with muscular tensions (Acrobat xi). In
this statement we can see how Wanghs technique embraces psychoanalyst Wilhelm
Reichs belief that physical tension can be a symptom of repressed mental trauma.
Following Reichs general premise Wangh writes that, what psychoanalysts call
repression (the unconscious forgetting of traumatic memories) operates by employing
muscular tension to hold emotional memories within our bodies. In his analytic
practice, Reich demonstrated that these feeling can be accessed and released by
muscular means (Acrobat 126). By employing a via negativa pedagogy, Wanghs
technique attempts to make the actor aware of, and free him from, the ways in which
his physical expression of emotion has been conditioned to meet the expectations of the
actors society and/or hide from those memories that are less than pleasant.
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Actors training in Wanghs technique begin with the exercises called (after
Grotowski) corporels. The corporels are, a physical form that evokes thoughts and
feelings, while at the same time providing safety and permission for their expression
(Acrobat 53). The point of the corporels is twofold. First, the corporels serve to make the
actor aware of the fact that his body is indeed a site of memory and consequently,
emotion. You may notice, writes Wangh, [. . .] that your body seems to actually
contain emotions, and that physical forms even simple exercise like stretches or
aerobics connect you with the thoughts and feelings you need for your acting work
(Acting with Wisdom 176). At this early point in the training the focus of Wanghs
technique is on the experience of emotions brought about by physical movement. As
Wangh tells his students prior to using the corporels for the first time, All you need to
do is let yourself know what you are feeling while it is happening, and give yourself
permission to allow that feeling to inhabit the form (Acrobat 54). Actors are not
prompted to utilize their body memories per se, but rather simply to notice how their
physical movements make them feel.
Secondly the corporels are a means to relieve us of our cultural habits [. . .]
which constrict our use of our bodies (Acrobat 60). As Wangh notes, We have packed
away our full-bodied emotions, and we have disconnected our faces and voices from
energies in our lower bodies (Acting with Wisdom 177). We have learned to keep
the lower half of our body closely guarded and physically tense for a variety of reasons
such as toilet training, protection of the sensitive genital region, cultural, religious or
personal strictures and/or taboos regarding nudity, sex and so forth. The exercises
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corporels combat the conditioning effects of society forcing the actor to focus on his
lower body by turning us upside down and freeing our legs and pelvis from their
assigned roles as guardians of our propriety and porters of our weight (Acrobat 61).
Indeed, the corporels force the actor to use his body in a manner that is quite out of the
realm of ordinary bodily action: undulations, forward and backward rolls, several
variations on headstands as well as literally bending over backwards (fig. 1).

Figure 1. Examples of Wanghs Exercises Corporels (Acrobat, 64-69)



Kneeling Backbend 1 Kneeling Backbend 2 Kneeling Backbend - 3
Elbow Headstand Ear Stand Handstand
Shoulder Stand Tripod Headstand Straight-Arm Headstand
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The final core principle of Wanghs technique is the emphasis on the individuals
process over product. In his preface to An Acrobat of the Heart, Wangh writes that the
essential technique of his system of actor training, does not lie in the exercise forms,
or even in the particular answers you may find while using those forms. It lies in the
centrality of the act of questioning itself (Acrobat xxxviii). Unlike the techniques
developed by Strasberg, Hagen, and Adler, which attempt to construct a reliable
method for the actors use of memory, Wanghs via negativa style of actor training is
deconstructive in nature it seeks to remove those obstacles that stand in the way of the
actors full awareness and utilization of his body as a source of memory for the actors
work. The emphasis of process over product makes Wanghs training technique similar
to the technique practiced by Joseph Chaikin. Like Chaikin, Wangh does not envision
his actor training technique as a method or system, at least not in the same sense as
when we speak of Stanislavskys system of Strasbergs method. Because each of our
histories is different, Wangh writes, there is no one gesture that will provoke the
same emotional connection for everyone (Acrobat 126). This is precisely the reason why
previous attempts to develop physical styles of acting, like the standardized lexicons of
gestures developed by Franois Delsarte, were not successful. Delsartes system taught
that specific physical gestures when made correctly would induce specific emotions. As
we shall soon see the correlation between physical movement and emotion is indeed a
real one but Delsartes error lay in assuming that, the human bodys mechanisms of
muscular memory are universal (Acrobat 126). To an extent this is true, as Paul
Ekmans work on facial expression of emotions in various cultures concludes (Facial
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Expressions of Emotions: New Findings, New Questions 34-38). Yet, as Antonio
Damasio points out, regardless of the degree of biological presetting of emotional
machinery, development and culture have much to say regarding the final product [of
emotional expression] (Feeling 57). The error Delsarte made was in assuming that his
lexicon of gestures would work for every actor, every time. In reality this proved not to
be the case. In a rather insightful observation Wangh notes that expressions of both
great sorrow and great joy are often expressed by what he calls the open chest: arms
wide apart, head slightly tilted back while the chest area is thrust forward. Were it not
for the emotion that we read on a persons face it would extremely difficult to
differentiate between an open chest of sorrow and an open chest of joy. What
Delsartes system of gestures did accomplish was to reinforce the highly declamatory
and melodramatic style of acting that Stanislavskys system was a reaction against. To
be sure there is a methodology in Wanghs technique, but it is a methodology that
values the individual actors experience over achieving a pre-determined result.
The bulk of the actors training in Wanghs technique focuses on what are known
as the plastiques. The plastiques are, writes Wangh, a method by which you can enlist
your voluntary muscle system to turn on or to alter your image and emotional world.
But at the same time the plastiques are also containers [. . .] that permit you to expand or
contract or make the gestural forms that disclose your private imagery to the world
more specific (emphasis in original Acrobat 108). If the corporel exercises awaken the
actor to his body memory and the ways in which its expression has been conditioned by
societal standards, then the exercises plastiques are the means by which the actor learns to
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consciously elicit an emotional response through a physical action. The primary goal of
plastiques training is for the actor to notice how each physical choice you make can
inspire a memory, a thought, or an emotional impulse (Acting with Wisdom 177-
178). In this way the plastiques serve the same function in Wanghs technique as the
sense memory exercises do in Strasbergs: both are initiators, keys, specific forms that
[the actor] can use to open the doors of [his] image/emotional life (emphasis in
original Acrobat 108). The actor can use them when he needs to jump-start his
inspiration because plastiques are containers, forms that both evoke and contain
emotional life (Acrobat 81). It must be stressed that the plastiques themselves have no
set form. They are not, as I have already pointed out, a lexicon or series of standardized
gestures like those that comprise Delsartes system. What makes something a
plastique, writes Wangh, is that the movement is specific, that it is filled with life, and
that it is related to an image (Acrobat 84).
The actor begins plastique training with what Wangh calls plastique isolations.
The actor isolates one particular part of his body (such as his eyes or his left hand) and
simply explores all the different ways in which the chosen part can move. By isolating a
single part of the body the actor is able to explore and play with moving that part of the
body in ways he normally would not. At this early stage the plastique isolations are
movement explorations of one body part at a time in every direction that part can
move and help to awaken the actor to the full expressive potential contained in their
bodies (Acrobat 75). One of the first things an actor working in physically based style of
actor training learns is that our daily physical vocabulary, if you will, is rather sparse.
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The point at which the plastique isolations cease being merely body movement
and come closer to body memory is when, as Wangh puts it, you sense that a lift of the
shoulders is a jerk or a slump or a shrug [. . .] (Acrobat 76). Note how Wangh
contrasts a simple description of a physical movement with words that not only
describe physical movement but also provide us with a sense of the feeling that
movement embodies. At this point in the training an actor focuses on how physical
gestures can, and often do, call forth emotions. Building upon the foundation
established in the corporels, the actor practicing plastique isolations must keep their
awareness centered on thoughts, images and emotions that their movements provoke.
The actor should not judge whatever he experiences, nor should he try to push for some
pre-determined result. This first step of plastiques training focuses solely on heightening
the actors awareness of the intimate connections between his physical and emotional
lives. Once the actor becomes proficient at working in isolation he then moves on to
what Wangh calls the plastique river. The distinction between the isolations and the
river is as simple as their names imply.
To initiate a plastique river the actor begins with a single isolation and then
allows the emotions, images, impulses whatever the isolation makes the actor
experience to lead him into the next plastique and then into another, and so on. What
were once isolated, individual plastiques begin to flow into one another and the river
takes on a life of its own. I find the river imagery particularly apt in describing this
process. An actor must learn to surrender control, allowing himself to be carried away,
as it were, on a current of his bodys making. By allowing one plastique to transform or
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travel to a different part of the body, an actor begins to become aware of how he can
consciously use his body as a means of calling forth the emotion needed to play a role
on stage.
To sum up my analysis of Wanghs technique thus far: the corporel exercises
introduce the actor to the idea that the body is a site of memory. In mnemonic terms,
the corporels teach the actor that his body does indeed possess memory while they also
seek to undermine learned behaviors of physical expression that have been instilled in
the actor via incorporating bodily practices. The plastiques are the next level of training
wherein the actor learns to focus on a specific body part/gesture in order to produce an
emotional reaction for the actor. In moving from plastique isolations to the plastique
river, an actor learns that he is capable of using physical gestures in order to call forth a
specific emotion from within himself. Two pertinent questions remain: how exactly do
the plastiques function as a type of memory? And, more to the point for those of us
with more than a scholarly interest in this subject, how does an actor apply the use of
plastiques to creating and playing a role on the stage?
To begin with, one must think of the plastiques as more than simple emotion-
filled movement (Acrobat 108). Plastiques should be thought of as:
[. . .] muscular reminders, provocations, goads that stimulate submerged feeling
to surface once again. By observing the images and emotions that pour through
us as we work with our bodies, we being to know ourselves, and we can begin
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to catalogue the particular physical keys that open our personal emotional
doorways. (Acrobat 126)
In a way one can think of training in the plastiques as the actor gathering raw
materials he will need in order to perform a role. While working on the plastiques, actors
discover that certain physical gestures or ways of moving consistently produce a
particular emotional reaction. Over time and with practice, actors trained in Wanghs
technique begin to develop a storehouse of plastiques that they can use, which
consistently produce the desired emotional response. One of the major advantages
Wanghs technique has over those which utilize episodic memory is that the actor does
not need to be able to remember a previous experience in order to access it via body
memory.
Caseys examples of the way in which traumatic body memory manifests in our
lives will help us to better understand how Wanghs technique enables actors to use
memories they do not consciously activate. In the case of traumatic memory Casey
relates the story of how his experience in a mechanics garage called back the painful
and traumatic memory of having undergone a root canal.
A few weeks after the drilling had occurred I was in a service station and heard a
pneumatic bolt tightener at work. The shrill grinding sound almost immediately
evoked the dread of being the hapless subject of my dentists drill; I felt myself
stiffening in anticipation of worse to come just as I had done in the dentists
chair: ushered in by the dread, my body was itself remembering the trauma. This
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led in turn to a vivid recollection of the scene which was, I suspected, a defense
against a still more engaging body memory than I had so far allowed myself to
undergo. (Remembering 155)
If I translate Caseys example into Wanghs terminology we can see how the
plastiques serve the same function as the pneumatic drill in Caseys example. Instead of
the sound of the pneumatic drill calling up the image of being the hapless subject of [a]
dentists drill, the plastiques gesture prompts the pre-reflective recall of emotion on the
part of the actor. To put it simply, says Wangh, if you keep your full body open and
available, your characters intentions will arise within you, quite unconsciously [. . .]
without your needing to figure them out (emphasis in original Acrobat 187). In some
instances actors who have trained with Wangh reported subsequent episodic recall
associated with a particular body memory, just as Casey experienced. This is not to say,
however, that a body memory must be corroborated by an episodic memory in order to
be a plastique. That Caseys body memory triggered an episodic memory merely
reinforces the point that even though our various systems of memory display unique
characteristics and seem to, in our experience of them, function independently of one
another, in actuality they collaborate with one another in ways we often escape our
perception. Body memory may, as it did in Caseys example, be the catalyst that calls
back to mind an episodic memory, a vivid recollection of the scene. In this example,
however, Caseys episodic memory occurs as a secondary instance of remembering. The
primary instance of remembering, the trigger that stimulated episodic recall, takes the
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form of body memory. That body memory can prompt other types of remembering is
indicative of the causal efficacy of body memory. In Caseys words, To be efficacious
in its own right is at once to be capable of producing further feeling on subsequent
occasions and to re-enact prior feelings in memory (Remembering 175). The causal
efficacy that body memory possesses is exactly the reason why the plastiques can elicit
an emotional response in the actor.
As with other acting techniques, the rehearsal process for the Wangh-trained
actor is about discovering what works for a scene. But instead of looking to his sense
memory, or the given circumstances to help craft his performance, the Wangh-trained
actor looks for physical forms that permit [him] to play repeatable acting beats
(emphasis in original Acrobat 197). Once an actor has found a plastique that he can
reliably use to produce the appropriate emotional response the continued use of that
plastique in rehearsals forms a performative memory of the plastique, just as we acquire
the performative memory to tie our shoes by practicing over and over. By executing
precise physical choices that we discovered during our training and rehearsal
process, Wangh writes, we can dependably access our emotional acting sources
(emphasis in original Acrobat 212). This is an inversion of the process that typifies most
systems of actor training taught in the United States. In the techniques already
examined the actor must be able to reach back in time, as it were, to access memory. For
these actors the memories they access, whether episodic or collective, are mental relics
of a past over and done with. In contrast Wanghs technique uses the actors memory as
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a means of connecting the actor [. . .] with a part of memory, not as a past event, but as
a living action (Acrobat 111). This type of memory is more alive than other forms
precisely because it is in the doing of an action that performative memory manifests
itself. The secret of this work, says Wangh, is that you do not need to dredge up the
emotion. The emotion is there. All you need to do is the physical act [. . .] If you can do
that, the acting will take care of itself (Acrobat 211).
Before moving on to the examination of the sixth and final actor training
technique under examination in this dissertation, I will briefly look at the perceived
advantages and disadvantages of Wanghs technique. From an actors point of view
perhaps the most obvious advantage of Wanghs technique is its commitment to
process over product, which in turn gives his technique a very actor-centric feel. The
goal is not to execute the technique correctly, but rather to experience what the body
remembers in response to the exercises. By plunging into the unknown with no
certainty of what you should be doing, whatever you discover in the process is
uniquely yours. And that lesson is more important than the details of the
exercise(Acrobat 51). Such an open-ended approach gives the actors memory a degree
of freedom and autonomy that we have not seen before. Wanghs technique doesnt
teach the actor to command memory like Strasbergs. Instead memory takes hold of the
actor using the plastiques. I believe this allows the actor to connect with memory on a
more immediate and, literally, visceral level. Even though a Wangh-trained actor may
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not be able to episodically recall a memory; that doesnt preclude him from being able
to use it to achieve an affective state of remembering.
A major criticism often leveled at Wanghs technique, and others similar to it, is
that it is too experimental. The work this book describes, Wangh writes has been
called experimental theater. But when people say experimental theater, they often seem
to think the word experimental means new or nonrealistic or weird (emphasis in
original Acrobat xxxvii). To be sure, running around and doing jumps and headstands is
wonderful for helping actors to explore and expand their creativity and expressiveness,
but how useful could such a technique be in playing a realistic drama such as Arthur
Millers All My Sons? Joan, one of the students met in Acrobat, voices precisely this kind
of concern when she tells Wangh that I just dont see what all this body work has to do
with acting you know, with doing real plays (emphasis in original Acrobat 109).
Another student named Carlos shares similar concerns about how Wanghs training can
be applied to non-experimental theatre: And in the back of my mind I realized that I
was afraid that this stuff weve been doing might be good for commedia dellarte or
something, but not for regular American acting (Acrobat 113). Wangh responds to his
students concerns by pointing out that we as audiences and theatre practitioners [. . .]
have come to assume that what we dont do on an everyday basis in our lives is not
real. But in fact the small, immobile kind of activity that we have come to think of as
real is no more realistic than full-body movement is (Acrobat 116). As Wangh clearly
states in the above passage, all the crazy running about and rolling on the floor are
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simply a means by which the actor can get in touch with his emotional life. What makes
Wanghs technique different from a more introverted and conventional style, like that
of Strasberg, is that Wanghs technique uses body memory as a means of stimulating
the actor. It is only a natural that the form of such a style of training be intensely
physical. In performance the Strasberg-trained actor doesnt use sense-memory in the
same way as he does in rehearsals. The process of rehearsing and refining the actors
technique is what enables the Strasberg-trained actor to utilize his sense memory much
more rapidly in performance than he would in rehearsal. The same holds true for
Wanghs technique, save the obvious exception of using the body instead of episodic
memory of the actor.
Critics of Wanghs technique would point out that the highly physical nature of
the corporel and plastiques training make it unsuitable for actors with physical
limitations or disabilities. Wangh, however, recounts his experience of working with a
paraplegic woman who discovered that she could achieve the emotional release of the
Cat kicks by kicking with her head (Acrobat 55). At first one may find this statement
startling but when one thinks for a moment about Wanghs technique it begins to make
sense. In its simplest formulation Wanghs technique is all about the actor learning to
trust in his bodys memory and learning how to access this memory via forms of
movements that exceed the boundaries through the use of non-conventional movement.
It seems quite plausible to me that Wanghs technique could be useful to an actor whose
own conventional movement is limited or absent completely. An actor without the
use of their legs may not be able to do all of the exercises as taught by Wangh but as we
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have seen, one of the great advantages of this technique is how it values the actors
experience of the process over achieving some pre-determined form. Like memory
itself, Wanghs system is predominately procedural.

5.3 VIEWPOINTS
The gift of Viewpoints training is allowing us to see old things in new ways to wake
up the sleeping formto find surprising and new possibilities in ourselves, our
environment and our art.
-Anne Bogart & Tina Landau, The Viewpoints Book

The final, actor training technique I will examine in this dissertation is the Viewpoints
technique, as developed by Anne Bogart and Tina Landau. Viewpoints distinguishes
itself from the other actor training techniques we have thus far examined in a few
respects. To begin with, Viewpoints has its origins as a technique used for the training
of dancers. Originally the Viewpoints were an attempt by dancer/choreographer Mary
Overlie to discern what she believed to be natural principles of movement in order to
help structure dance improvisations in time and space. Note that this is an almost
verbatim restatement of Stanislavskys own attempt to find natural principles for the
actors use. This is a sentiment that Bogart and Landau share when they write that
Viewpoints, [. . .] belong to the natural principles of movement, time and space (The
Viewpoints Book: A Practical Guide to Viewpoints and Composition 7). In the late 1970s
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Overlie first began formulating what eventually became what she called the Six
Viewpoints. Overlies work resulted in what she describes as system of training which
she sees as a physical embodiment of a new philosophical step, called postmodernism
(Overlie, The Six Viewpoints 191). Viewpoints is a technique which embraces ideas
commonly associated with the postmodern movement: the deconstructing of traditional
hierarchies; embracing a pastiche of techniques; and not privileging any perspective as
authoritative. It releases the existing materials of theater, formerly organized into
various rigid hierarchical orders, into a fluid state for reexamination (Overlie 188).
In 1978 Overlie began to teach her Six Viewpoints to students in the
Experimental Theatre Wing of NYUs undergraduate theatre program. The Six
Viewpoints, writes Overlie, began with dancers questions about choreography, and
has evolved into an investigation into theater in the era when so much crossover
happened in the arts (Overlie 187). When Anne Bogart joined the faculty of NYUs
Experimental Theatre Wing in 1979, she soon came to recognize that, Marys approach
to generating movement for the stage was applicable to creating viscerally dynamic
moments of theatre with actors and other collaborators (Bogart & Landau, The
Viewpoints Book 5). Fascinated by the potential Overlies work held for the theatre,
Bogart began to incorporate the Six Viewpoints into her own work.
In 1987 Bogart met Tina Landau while both were working at the American
Repertory Theatre in Cambridge, MA. Like Bogart, Landau became fascinated by the
Six Viewpoints and what Overlies technique could bring to the theatre. Over the
course of the next ten years Bogart and Landau experimented with Overlies Six
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Viewpoints and eventually expanded the original six into the nine that are now utilized
in Viewpoints training for actors. To this day Bogart and Landau remain committed to
the use of Viewpoints in the actors training, often employing the technique in their
own directorial work as well as conducting numerous workshops. Most recently, in
2005, Bogart and Landau collaborated to produce the first written, and much
anticipated, work on the use of Viewpoints for actor training called The Viewpoints Book:
A Practical Guide to Viewpoints and Composition (hereafter referred to as TVB).
Before we get into the particulars of how Viewpoints uses the actors memory, let
us take a moment to define exactly what the Viewpoints are, as well as identify the core
principles of Bogart and Landaus technique. I was first introduced to Viewpoints as an
undergraduate about fifteen years ago. At that time Bogart and Landau had expanded
Overlies six Viewpoints into seven. It is rather difficult to convey exactly what the
Viewpoints are in words because Viewpoints, like body memories, do not lend
themselves to facile verbalization (Remembering 165). In the second chapter of their
book, Bogart and Landau offer up three possible ways of defining Viewpoints. First,
Viewpoints is a philosophy translated into a technique for (1) training performers; (2)
building ensemble; and (3) creating movement for the stage (TVB 7). Secondly
Viewpoints can also be thought of as, a set of names given to certain principles of
movement through time and space; these names constitute a language for talking about
what happens onstage (TVB 8). Finally, Viewpoints is points of awareness that a
performer or creator makes use of while working (TVB 8). For our purposes let us
concentrate on the first two. Bogart and Landau take care to clearly state that these
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definitions, reflect our understanding and use of them. Even in the context of the work
of such pioneers as Mary Overlie [. . .] it is impossible to say where these ideas actually
originated, because they are timeless and belong to the natural principles of movement,
time and space (TVB 7). The nine Viewpoints which currently make up the technique
taught by Bogart and Landau can be divided into two distinct groups: the viewpoints of
time and the viewpoints of space:
Table 1. Viewpoints of Time and Space
Viewpoints of Time Viewpoints of Space
Tempo Shape
Duration Gesture
Kinesthetic Response Architecture
Repetition Spatial Relationship
Topography

Over the years some of the Viewpoints have been further refined into smaller
subdivisions. For example the Viewpoint Repetition can be distilled down into the
Viewpoints of internal repetition and external repetition; the Viewpoint Gesture
encompasses two different kinds of gesture: behavioral gesture and expressive gesture.
These refinements of the larger Viewpoints come into play as actors become more
accustomed to working with the larger categories. It is important to note here that none
of the Viewpoints are more important than the other. This is the first core principle of
Bogart and Landaus technique - its nonhierarchical nature. In training and application,
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no one Viewpoint holds precedence over the others. Bogart and Landau extend this
even further in practice by applying their nonhierarchical philosophy to all the
elements that compose a theatrical performance text (if there is one) does not hold
precedence over lighting, setting, costumes, music, and so forth. Not only does this
approach underscore the highly collaborative nature of Viewpoints work, but it also
points to the importance given to ensemble acting in Bogart and Landaus technique.
As noted before Bogart and Landau list building ensemble as one of the defining
features of Viewpoints training (TVB 7). In fact it is virtually impossible for an actor to
gain the full benefit of Viewpoints training working on her own.
The second core principle of Bogart and Landaus technique is that Viewpoints
training is about experiencing a process; it is an invitation for actor to explore
possibilities. While both Bogart and Landau admit that There are steps and basics that
we believe are crucial for understanding Viewpoints in the body, and for using it most
effectively in training and rehearsal, both also plainly also state that their approach is
not definitive, not gospel, not absolute truth (emphasis in TVB x).. Bogart and Landau
write: As Joseph Campbell has said: Where you stumble, there you shall find your
treasure. We invite the stumbling. We hope maybe to have indicated a path but not
cleared it, leaving you to work through the most thorny areas (TVB xi). Unlike
Strasbergs Method or Wanghs technique there is no set progression by which one
must study Viewpoints.
The final, and perhaps most important, core principle of Viewpoints is its
attempt to train actors to make acting choices rooted in something other than
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psychology. With the exception of Wangh, and to an extent, Chaikin, all of the actor
training methods I have examined are attempts to use the actors memory to make
acting choices that conform to the psychological realism that dominates most of todays
theatre. In fact, the key to understanding the Viewpoints technique is to realize that it is
a method of actor training that seeks to break the actor out of a psychological way of
thinking about acting. In specific terms, writes long-time collaborator and co-founder
with Bogart of the Saratoga International Theatre Institute, Tadashi Suzuki, Anne
Bogart is taking on the backbone of American theatre: realism (Creating a
New/Different America 85). In his forward to Anne Bogart: Viewpoints, a collection of
essays written by Bogart and those who have worked with her, Jon Jory states that, In
a culture where the best acting is done from the neck up, Annes work is an obvious
antidote (xv). This is not to say that Viewpoints should be thought of as a reactionary
movement against Stanislavskis work; in fact, the opposite is true. As Bogart and
Landau note in the TVB:
Later, Stanislavsky admitted that his earlier psychological methods, which
had been so influential in the United States, were misguided. He then altered his
emphasis from inducing emotion through affective memory to a system of
psycho-physical chain-of-action, where action, rather than psychology, induced
emotion and feeling. (emphasis in original 16)
When viewed in the overall context of Stanislavskis work on actor training,
Viewpoints can be said to be a closer derivative of Stanislavskis later work than any of
the techniques we have examined thus far. This is not to say that the techniques
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previously examined are of any less value or effect for actors than Viewpoints, but
merely to refute the notion that a physical style of acting which eschews the traditional
psychological paradigm is somehow the antithesis to the work of Stanislavski nothing
could be further from the truth.
Writing about the Viewpoints technique presents a unique challenge for the
established pattern of inquiry that I have followed throughout this dissertation. First it
is difficult to write about the exercises that make up Viewpoints training because this
type of training is not based upon a set progression of exercises prescribed by Bogart
and Landau. They offer many suggestions of how one should teach Viewpoints but
prescribe none. In many ways, when an actor begins training in Viewpoints she is
immersed in the totality of the technique from the outset. Among the suggestions
Bogart and Landau offer to help aid the actors exploration of the various Viewpoint is
what is known as grid work. Simply stated, the actor imagines the stage as being
covered in an imaginary grid consisting of columns and rows. To begin with the actor
may only move along one axis of the grid while exploring whatever particular
Viewpoint is being examined. Once the actor feels comfortable or is given permission
by the instructor, she then begins to explore the Viewpoint being studied along both
axes of the grid. The primary function of the grid exercise is to limit the possibility of
choices for the actor so that she does not become overwhelmed when first learning how
to utilize the Viewpoints in her movement on stage. It is an example of the paradox that
strong boundaries can actually encourage greater freedom of expression for the actor.
Although I strongly recommend, as do Bogart and Landau, using grid work as a means
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of introducing the individual Viewpoints to actors, it is not strictly speaking, a required
part of Viewpoints training. All of the systems I have examined thus far are composed
of a series of steps, which lay the foundation for further work.
The second difficulty in conforming to my established pattern of inquiry is the
fact that Viewpoints training does not employ the actors memory in the way we have
been conceiving of it up until this point: namely that the actors past experiences are
called upon to help inspire her performance. In reality, memory never comes into play,
in a deliberate way, in Viewpoints training. Individual actors may experience memory
in all or one of its guises while practicing Viewpoints, but this would be a by-product
rather than the ultimate goal of Viewpoints training. The connection between
Viewpoints and body memory can best be understood when we look at how the
Viewpoints function as memory in the actors use of them in rehearsals and
performance. Instead of forcing and fixing an emotion, write Bogart and Landau,
Viewpoints training allows untamed feeling to arise from the actual physical, verbal
and imaginative situation in which actors find themselves together (TVB 16). Not
only does this statement reinforce the idea that Viewpoints aims to give actors non-
psychological ways of thinking about her character and performance, but it also
illustrates how Viewpoints training functions as memory, specifically body memory.
Compare Bogart and Landaus views with Caseys definition of performative body
memory: If [performative] body memory is suitably active, one need not have recourse
to other levels or kinds of experience beyond that in which one is presently engaged.
All that is called for is that one exist bodily in the circumstances where a given body
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memory is pertinent (Remembering 148). In both passages the path into memory does
not lie in the past, but rather the present repetition of past bodily circumstances
which elicits the actors memory. In this way we can see how Viewpoints utilizes a
form of memory that is pre-reflective, complete in its presentation and embodied
three of the general characteristics Caseys attributes of body memory. The actor
trained in Viewpoints does not try, specifically, to remember anything, but instead
relies on her use, in the present, of Viewpoints in order to inspire her performance.
Instead of thinking about a characters archetype, as would the Adler trained actor
would do, the Viewpoints trained actor focuses her attentions on a characters shape or
tempo of movement. In the rehearsal process the actor explores all the various possible
shapes and tempos of her character until she finds those she believes are most
appropriate for her character. By sheer repetition the shape and tempo of a character
sink into the actor so to speak. In terms of memory what is actually occurring is the
creation of a new performative memory, not unlike the process when one practices at
riding a bike or tying ones shoes. These physical actions become engrained in the
actors body and are pre-reflectively triggered when one finds oneself in the same
bodily circumstances associated with these memories. This is precisely how Viewpoints
utilize the actors body memories as a means of inspiring and guiding her performance.
Another characteristic of body memory that illustrates how Viewpoints exploits
the actors performative body memory is what Casey calls the co-immanence of past
and present (Remembering 167). All of the techniques examined thus far have taught
actors to utilize their past experiences in order to inform their present activities. This is
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exemplary of the traditional view of memory, namely that it is a remnant of the past
which influences and informs our present situation. The manner in which Viewpoints
training draws upon the actors memory demonstrates a reversal of this past to present
formula. As Casey states, [. . .] in body memories we allow the past to enter actively
into the very present in which our remembering is taking place. Moreover, such
immanence is a two-way affair: it is immanence of the past in the present and of the
present in the past (Remembering 168). In other words in the world of body memory
we must acknowledge that our memory not only influences our present, but is also
influenced by our present. The implications of this statement are important for
understanding how Viewpoints functions as a form of memory. To begin with, the
Viewpoints an actor relies on are never exactly the same from one performance or
rehearsal to the next. The Viewpoints-trained actor may find that a rapid tempo of
movement and speech is her characters defining characteristic, but this rapid tempo
can never be repeated in exactly the same way. And yet, the performance of a
characters tempo can be similar enough from night to night to elicit a mnemonic
response in the actors body. Because [performative body memory] re-enacts the past,
writes Casey, it need not represent it; its own kinesthesias link it from within to the felt
movement which it is reinstating [. . .] (Remembering 178). Consequently the, lived
bodys role, far from being merely formal, has become a material condition of possibility
for remembering for the Viewpoints-trained actor (emphasis in Remembering 176).
Think of my previous example of being able to ride a bike even after not doing so
for years. While time has effected numerous changes in my body, such as increased or
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decreased coordination, changes in weight, and ability to balance, the essential physical
activities required to ride a bike remained unchanged. The result is that because I
presently exist in the same bodily circumstances in which I first learned how to ride a
bike, I am able to quickly adapt and successfully carry out the action of riding a bike.
This is precisely what Casey alludes to when he says that, the present is effectively at
work on the pasts very ingression into its own realm: instead of simply repeating this
past, [body memory] modifies it by extending intentional threads to ever-changing
circumstances, much as a pianist extends his or her already acquired skills in playing
new and more difficult pieces (168). In much the same manner Viewpoints training
enables the actor to utilize the present work with the Viewpoints as a means of eliciting
a performative body memory, despite the fact that each nights performance will not be
exactly the same as any other. As training, writes Landau, the Viewpoints function
much as scales do for a pianist or working at the barre does for the ballet dancer. It is a
structure for practice, for keeping specific muscles in shape, alert, and flexible
(Source-Work, the Viewpoints and Composition: What Are They? 23). The muscles
Landau speaks of in this instance, are those of performative body memory.
Now let us turn our attention to the ways in which Viewpoints training also
encounters the actors collective memory. First, like Wanghs technique, Viewpoints
training is a process in which the actor un-learns the patterns of emotional expression
that have been conditioned in her by society. In the second chapter of his book The
Feeling of What Happens Antonio Damasio boldly states, We do not need to be
conscious of the inducer of an emotion and often are not, and we cannot control
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emotions willfully (Feeling 47). Due to his acceptance of the James-Lange theory of
emotion Damasio must accept that there is nothing we can do to control our emotions,
which are, according to the James-Lange theory, rooted in the changes that occur in the
physiology of the human body due to external stimuli. Although I agree with Damasio
about physiology determining emotion, I take issue with his belief that emotions elude
our willful control. In fact it is my job as an actor to willfully manipulate my emotions
on a nightly basis. Perhaps Damasio anticipates such criticism because he does
backtrack a bit by later stating, We can also control, in part, the expression of some
emotions [. . .] but most of us are not very good at it and that is one reason why we pay
a lot to see good actors [. . .] (Feeling 48).
Whether or not an actor is capable of inducing an emotion on her own as opposed
to being highly skilled at portraying an emotion is irrelevant for my current purposes,
but the actors expression of that emotion is very pertinent to my current inquiry. In
particular the ways in which we have been conditioned by outside influences that
inhibit our emotional expression are particularly relevant when illustrating how
Viewpoints treats the actors collective memory. Damasio goes on to say that while, in
his opinion, We are as effective at stopping an emotion as we are at preventing a
sneeze. We can try to prevent the expression of an emotion, and we may succeed in part
but not in full. Some of us, under the appropriate cultural influence, get to be quite
good at it [. . .] (Feeling 49). The key words in this passage are cultural influence.
As we saw in the chapter 3, the phenomenon known as collective memory, is a
powerful and invasive force which permeates our lives in ways we are unconscious of.
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One need look no further than the development of the modern rules of theatre etiquette
in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries for proof that emotional expression
can be conditioned. Prior to the development of todays code of theatre etiquette
audiences were quite vocal in expressing their emotional responses to a production.
Actors who pleased the audiences with a particular soliloquy were often called upon to
perform it again on the spot, a demand many of the actors with a melodramatic bent
were more than happy to oblige. Those actors whose performances were less pleasing
to audiences would find themselves the target of whistles, boos and occasionally rotten
produce. But as the rules of modern theatre etiquette began to take shape, a process
itself which is partly the result of the accumulation of collective memory, audiences
were conditioned (partly through the new convention of dimming the lights in the
auditorium) to become less expressive of their emotions about a performance, at least
while the performance was occurring. The idea that we are conditioned in our
expression of emotion is also quite easy to see in a more mundane example. Think of
the admonishment to a young boy, not to cry like a girl. While this example is not
only sexist, but also some argue, detrimental to healthy psychological development, it is
a perfect example of how our emotional responses can be, and are, conditioned by
society.
The problem with this kind of inhibited emotional expression for the actor is not
a small one. As we saw in case of Wanghs system, a large portion of the training
undergone by actors is designed to break through the learned restrictions of emotional
expression. In a similar manner Viewpoints training also seeks to break the actor free
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from the patterns of emotional expression that have been conditioned within her. Like
Wanghs technique, Viewpoints utilizes the actors body in unusual ways in order to
break the actors habits of expression. In this respect, the two systems are counter-
memorious when it comes to collective memory.
In the previous section on Wanghs technique we saw how body memory and
collective memory often bleed over into one another. One of the core principles of
Wanghs system was undermining the physical social conditioning all actors are
subjected to in order to free up the actors range of possible physical expressions. Albeit
without the intentionality we must ascribe to Wangh, Viewpoints does much the same
thing. Viewpoints training encourages the actor to learn to utilize her body in
unfamiliar and often unconventional ways. In my early Viewpoints training we
observed that men and women would lead with different parts of their bodies when
they walked. In nearly all instances the mens walk was far more aggressive, projecting
out into space as they walked across the stage. Interestingly enough, most of us males
were found to be leading with the pelvic region of the body. The women on the other
hand, had a movement pattern that was less aggressive and none of the women in this
particular instance led with their pelvic area. These differences can be easily attributed,
in part, to the social conditioning imposed upon individuals by and through the use of
gender stereotypes. The physical manifestation of culturally constructed patterns of
behavior or imagined ideals is yet another example of the ways in which the social
frameworks of memory direct, constrict and typify bodily behavior.
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Like Wanghs technique, Viewpoints seeks to free the actor from those
incorporating practices she has internalized and which limit her usable vocabulary of
physical expression. Once actors become aware of the multitude of physical behaviors
they could engage in, instead of just the standard patterns of behavior we have come to
internalize as being representative of normal, you are no longer bound by
unconsciousness (my emphasis TVB 19).
Bogart and Landaus use of the word unconscious as a means of describing the
process by which our patterns of behavior are set and actualized is quite telling.
Implicit in their word choice is the idea that somewhere during our lives we were
taught that specific types of bodily expression were acceptable and some were not. The
fact that we do not even have to consciously deliberate as to what types of physical
behavior are condoned and which types are not is a strong indication that Viewpoints
training not only utilizes the actors body memory, but does so in a way that reveals
how tenuous the imaginary lines between memory systems are. For now we see how
Viewpoints not only explores the actors body memory, but engages, even if to contest
it, the collective memory of the actor as well.
Unlike Wanghs technique, however, Viewpoints does not stop with
interrogating the ways in which the actors collective memory has influenced her
physical life. Let us return to the Viewpoint of Tempo for another example. Let us say I
will be a character in Tennessee Williams play Summer and Smoke, which is set in town
of Glorious Hill, Mississippi. In thinking about how best to portray a citizen of this
small, Southern town I envision a tempo that is much slower and more relaxed than my
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own personal tempo. Why such a difference? Well Im from the North and I talk fast, I
walk fast and in general do everything faster than do those in the South. Now I am
aware that my broad characterization of Southerners as being more slow and relaxed
than Northerners is a stereotype, but it is one I learned via the social frameworks of my
Northern heritage. Nothing in Summer and Smoke directly tells me that these people
move more slowly than I do, nor speak more slowly than I do, but my initial thoughts
about the characters tempo are still dictated by the biases I carry within me. Biases that
can be, and often are, passed along by my involvement in the social frameworks of
memory.
In this way we can see how Viewpoints and Adlers system of characterization
display a remarkable parallelism in the ways in which they address the actors semantic
and collective memory. Even something like a functional exercise, the Viewpoint
Tempo, can be, and is, influenced by the collective memory. Exchange the Viewpoints
for archetypes and we can see how my example of playing a character from Summer and
Smoke can translate over in to Adlers system. As a Northerner when I think of a
Southerner two particular archetypes come to mind: the drawling speaker and
unhurried mover. Of course I am fully cognizant that not all Southerners have a long,
relaxed drawl in their speech, nor do they all leisurely amble though life. But what
these archetypes represent are cultural markers we have come to identify with Southern
culture thanks, in no small part, to the perpetuation of these archetypical patterns of
behavior by the social frameworks of memory. Perhaps the biggest difference between
Adlers system of characterization and Bogart/Landaus Viewpoints is the latters
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rejection of stereotypes. Viewpoints teaches the actor to make choices about
characterization that are rooted in the physical life of the character. In many ways such
acting leads to a much more honest, and truthful, portrayal because these choices are
based in the truth of the onstage situation instead of some preconceived notion of how a
certain type of person behaves.
In the fall of 2004 I was preparing to play the role of Ubu in the University of
Pittsburghs adaptation of Alfred Jarrys Ubu Roi. About three weeks before rehearsals
were to begin the director and I met with one another and a faculty member who was
overseeing the production. As we talked about our various goals for the production, I
mentioned my own personal goal of enhancing my use of negative space in my acting.
The director, an already rather accomplished young director, stared at me as if I were
speaking nonsense. His faculty advisor gently chuckled and said: Devins talking in
Viewpoints again. He does that a lot. We of the theatre world, like many other
professions, have a language that is specific to our profession, one which holds meaning
for us but may be confusing to someone not initiated in our ways. Social groups carry
within themselves, and pass along memorably to their initiates, certain ways of using
language and the associations that go along with the words.
It may seem odd, at first, to think of language as being a form of memory but
that is precisely what it is. Language is what Halbwachs calls, the most elementary
and the most stable framework of collective memory (45). Language passes along a
system of expression that indicates membership in a specialized group.. This is what
leads Halbwachs himself to plainly state that, It is language, and the whole system of
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social conventions attached to it that allows us at every moment to reconstruct our past
(173). Halbwachs notes, when aphasia affects a persons ability to perceive and use
language, [. . .] he can no longer identify his thought with that of others or attain that
form of social representation which is exemplified by a notion, a scheme, or a symbol of
a gesture or of a thing. Contact between his thought and the collective memory
becomes interrupted at a certain number of detailed points (44).
The diverse argots and technical terms specific to actor-training systems are
therefore instrumental in perpetuating the systems themselves. Such systems and
occult terminologies fit into a long tradition of ritualized body practices and mnemonic
systems designed to yield secret knowledge. Viewpoints as a language, constitutes a
new social framework, and thus a new set of collective memories for the actor. In its
use, Viewpoints as language not only offers a shorthand for communication, thus
streamlining the process of making theatre, it also engenders a non-psychological way
of thinking about acting in general. Such changes in the way the actor uses language as
well as the overall way of thinking about acting, actually changes the actors brain,
forming new memories encompassing all three of the major types of memory I have
undertaken to examine.
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6.0 CONCLUSION
Without memory, there is no culture. Without memory, there would be no civilization,
no society, no future.
Elie Weisel, A God Who Remembers

Actor training in the United States has been closely linked with the actors memory
throughout the course of the twentieth century, targeting different types of memory for
use. From its very beginnings, modern, systematic actor training has relied on the
actors memory as a means of inspiring the actors performance. Drawing on the work
of Thodule Ribot, Stanislavski encouraged his actors to reach an affective state of
remembering by using autobiographic memory. Stanislavski taught his actors that
concentration on the sensory details of such memories could often lead to a re-
experiencing of the emotion felt in the original experience. With practice the actor
could learn to achieve this affective state of memory on demand, thus providing the
actor with a reliable and systematic means of experiencing genuine emotion in
performance without needing to rely on the fickle nature of inspiration. Sometimes
considered the same as or a subset of episodic memories, autobiographic memories are
precisely what their name implies: memories of our past experiences, often infused with
emotional content. Because of this, autobiographic memory is the type most likely to
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trigger an affective state of remembering in the actor. Although Stanislavski would
eventually pursue other emphases, his exploration of the actors memory would exert a
profound influence on actor training the world over, particularly in the United States.
Having studied under Stanislavskis pupils Richard Boleslavsky and Maria
Ousepenskaya, Lee Strasbergs interpretation of Stanislavskis affective memory
technique has become perhaps the most widespread and certainly most widely
recognized training technique in the United States today. As we have seen, Strasbergs
interpretation of Stanislavskis work displays significant differences with the original;
and yet for all their differences the two techniques, mnemonically speaking, are quite
similar. In utilizing the actors autobiographic memory these techniques focus on the
types of memory that often have the most emotional content associated with them. This
type of memory is also a conscious form of memory, which gives the actor some degree
of control over what and how he or she remembers. The field/observer perspective
unique to episodic memories is a good example of the ways in which actors can
consciously influence how they remember a past experience. It is this ability to be
consciously induced and analyzed that makes the episodic memories useful to the
Strasberg-trained actor. Strasbergs understanding of episodic memory demonstrates a
conception of memory that is in keeping with his times. Our contemporary
understanding of the episodic memory system corroborates and supports many of
Strasbergs own beliefs about memory and helps to explain how his technique has
proven effective to countless actors over several generations.
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Conscious memory, however, as we have learned, accounts for just a small part
of our mnemonic life. In fact, most of our mnemonic life occurs on the unconscious
level. The semantic memory system governs much of the unconscious memory we
utilize in our day to day activities. Although it may not carry the same emotional
impact or contribute to our sense of self, semantic memory is just as vital, and in some
ways more vital, than episodic memory. The semantic memory system governs the kind
of mnemonic information that we can classify as being factual, or knowledge based.
State or national capitals, basic math facts (2+2=4), phone numbers, trivia and other
similar types of things that we just know, but have no memory of ever learning are
examples of semantic memory. Maurice Halbwachss theory of collective memory,
although predating our recognition and understanding of the semantic memory system
by many years, corroborates and corresponds with much of what we now know about
how semantic memory functions in our lives, for it is semantic memory that collectives
preserve and convey. Halbwachs believed that memory was as much a function of
sociology as it was a function of psychology or physiology two of the main views of
memory in Halbwachss time. He hypothesized that the social groups to which an
individual belonged exerted an unconscious influence on a persons memory. These
social frameworks of memory include both official and unofficial groups from
nationalities to amateur hobbyists. Individuals still retain their own personal
memories, but what type of information it remembers, how the individual remembers
and even what the individuals memories mean to them are all influenced to some
degree by the social frameworks of memory. Perhaps most importantly, the social
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frameworks of memory influence the perceptions and belief of a society as a whole.
More than simply influencing a societys perceptions, Halbwachs illustrates how
collective memory can, and often does, re-write history as a way of legitimizing a
societys current values and beliefs.
We have seen how the techniques of Stella Adler and Joseph Chaikin draw upon
the actors collective memory, and it should not be surprising they display a number of
similarities. Both techniques are predicated upon a use of the actors collective memory
that is both implicit and explicit. Both techniques exhibit an understanding and use of
collective memory that display a number of correspondences with Halbwachss theory,
although there is no conclusive evidence to link either to the work of Halbwachs.
Adlers and Chaikins work recognizes how the actors participation in the social
frameworks of memory influences not only the actor as a person, but also the actors
performance. And yet for all their similarities the techniques of Adler and Chaikin take
opposing positions on collective memory.
Whereas Adlers technique shows us how collective memory supports the actor,
Chaikin shows us how it constrains the actor. In the final analysis Adlers use of the
actors collective memory is quite conservative. Characterization according to type
reinforces and transmits an embodiment of type that is in accord with the attitudes and
judgments of the dominant social frameworks of memory. When the Adler-trained
actor plays character according to type she adopts and makes use of a number of
preconceptions about her characters type: what her character values, how her character
behaves, the characters place in society, and so forth. The sources of the actors
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preconceptions, many of which the actor is unaware of, come from the social
frameworks of memory in which the actor participates. Using these preconceptions the
actor constructs a characterization that meets the unique demands of the given
circumstances while remaining a recognizable type to the audience. The audience is
able to recognize a characters type because the actors performance of it is in accord
with and influenced by the dominant social frameworks notions of that type. When
employed in this manner collective memory supports not only the actors
characterization, but also the audiences reception of it.
Chaikins technique presents us with a wholly different attitude toward and
approach to using the actors collective memory. Being predicated upon interrogating
and deconstructing the influences of the social frameworks of memory; Chaikins
technique illustrates the ways in which collective memory can constrain the actor. By
fostering an awareness of his collective memory, Chaikins technique helps the actor to
interrogate his own suppositions about himself, character and the audience. Together
the techniques developed by Adler and Chaikin provide us with a complete picture of
the pervasive and persuasive powers exhibited by the actors collective memory.
Stephen Wanghs Grotowski-based technique and the Viewpoints developed by
Anne Bogart and Tina Landau provided us with the opportunity to examine how
memory is embodied in the actor. The idea that memory had a bodily component is not
new. From Descartes animal spirits, to Richard Semons engram, memory has often
been thought to make its mark on the body. For many years body memory was
relegated to the status of a second-class or rudimentary form of memory comparable
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to simple habit. Today, however, body memory and the procedural memory system
that governs it are seen to be an integral part of our mnemonic life. The fact that our
bodies have a memory that is located within the flesh, and not the grey matter can be
experienced in any number of mundane, daily activities: typing, riding a bike, walking
to work. All of these activities, and hundreds more like them, are accomplished with
little or no conscious effort on our part thanks to the pervasive, persistent and mostly
unconscious efforts of the procedural memory system. Body memory, however,
encompasses more than simple physical activities. Like episodic memory, body
memory can provoke an emotional reaction in the present. Like the semantic memory it
is also subject to the influence of collective memory. Wanghs corporels and plastiques
take advantage of both of these characteristics of body memory. By first recognizing
and then un-learning societally conditioned physical behaviors the Wangh-trained actor
is able to use body memory to inspire emotion in a manner which is remarkably similar
to Strasbergs use of the episodic memory.
The Viewpoints has the same goals as Wanghs technique but accomplishes them
in a very different manner Being the most recently developed of all the techniques
Viewpoints use of the actors memory reflects our most current attitudes toward
memory in general - all of it is important, all of it is needful. By teaching actors to
perform, think and even speak in terms of the Viewpoints, Bogart and Landaus
technique illustrates a use of all three of the memory systems we have been examining.
It also displays a very different approach to using the actors memory. Stanislavski,
Strasberg, Adler, Chaikin and Wangh all speak of accessing the actors past experiences
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as a means of inspiring their present performance. Bogart and Landau, in contrast,
believe that:
Emotion induced by recollection of past experience can quickly turn
acting into a solipsistic exercise. The Herculean effort to pin down a particular
emotion removes the actor from the simple task of performing an action, and
thereby distances actors from one another and from the audience. (TVB 16)
By rejecting not only the idea of using recollection of past experience, but also the
psychology based style of acting established by Stanislavski, Viewpoints eschew almost
a hundred years of tradition in United States actor training. Instead Bogart and
Landaus technique engenders memories for the actor using the Viewpoints in training
and rehearsals. When the Viewpoints- trained actor performs she focuses all her
attention on the present trusting in the pre-reflective nature of body memory.
There is much left to be said about memory and the actors art. In the course of
my research I have had to set aside many interesting lines of inquiry in order to
conform to the survey-style approach I had chosen. Before I conclude I would like to
point out one possible avenue for further research. Michel Foucaults work, especially
his notion of counter-memory, could offer much to say about the ways in which U.S.
actor training has used the actors memory. Counter-memories are those memories
which stand in opposition or are in minority to the dominant collective memory. If the
winners write history, then the losers must console themselves with counter-memory.
As we saw in Halbwachs, collective memory changes over time and counter-memory
can be thought of one of the ways in which these changes are accomplished. Counter-
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memory acts as a destabilizing force by preserving the memory of something other than
the status quo. Some counter-memories can be powerful enough to affect a change in
the dominant collective memory, to be remembered by all. Tony Kushners two part
Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes is an excellent example of this
type of counter-memory. By telling the story of the onset of the AIDS epidemic in
1980s United States from the perspective of gays, Jews and Mormons Kushner puts on
stage a memory of a 1980s United States that is counter to and contradicts the dominant
collective memory of his time. The critical and popular success of Kushners play and
its entry into the canon of United States drama illustrates how counter-memory may
overcome and become part of the official memory.
What, if anything, does counter-memory have to do with the actors training? In
denying the psychological for the physical approach to acting can Viewpoints be said to
be a counter-memorious throwback to the more presentational acting styles that pre-
date Stanislavski? As we have seen, the techniques of Chaikin, Wangh, Bogart and
Landau seek to free the actor of societys influences on mental, emotional and physical
levels. I suggest these techniques could be construed as examples of counter-memory at
work in the actors training-- specially counter to the memory work of Strasberg and
Adler. And why do these two groups stand at opposing ends of the century? Is it
reflective of our knowledge of memory or the evolution of acting or both?
The evidence of cultural fascination with memory reaches back to the ars
memoria practiced in Ancient Greece such as the loci method. Memory occupies a central
place in films, literature, art and music across cultures and historical time periods. Over
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the course of the twentieth century our knowledge of what memory is and how
memory functions has grown, become more complicated, more sophisticated. We have
seen memory move out of the mind and into not only the body, but out into the world
around us. In an interesting parallel, as our understanding of memory increased over
the course of the twentieth century, so too did the different ways and types of memory
used by actor training in the United States. Perhaps of all the conclusions to be drawn
from this dissertation the most important may be this: acting should no longer be
thought of as some kind of mystic, unknowable process. To be sure there will always
be an intangible element to acting, one either gets it or they do not. But by using our
current understanding of mnemonics from such diverse fields as neuroscience,
sociology and philosophy we can see not only how certain techniques use the actors
memory, but why these techniques are effective in doing so. When coupled with the
memory of what has come before us, this new understanding increases our ability to
refine, experiment with and evolve the art of acting.

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